A town trapped in Amber: Port Townsend, local seaport

Story by Stella Wenstob

Known as ‘Key City,’ the ‘New York of the West Coast,’ and that place where Richard Gere trained for the navy (in the 1981 An Officer and a Gentleman), Port Townsend has a colorful past of boom and bust, and boom and bust again. Once the second most populous port on the Pacific Northwest, this town has experienced high hopes and deep disappointments. Today, its rich and checkered history adds flavor making it a great place to spend a day shopping, eating and exploring near the fjord.

The Clam Cannery, 1873

Birth of a Seaport

During the 1850s Port Townsend served as the official Port of Entry for the Puget Sound Customs District as its sheltered bay was a perfect stopping place for shipping into Southern Puget Sound. The gradual replacement of sail by steam power in the 1870s and 1880s allowed vessels freedom from the contrary winds of Puget Sound and made the staging port unnecessary. No longer the “key” to Puget Sound, now ships that did not need to check in with customs could steam right past Port Townsend on their way to Southern Puget Sound.

The docks and harbor feature active boat building and plenty of antique vessels in restoration.

Promises of a western terminus for the new continental railway served as a recurring disappointment for the little town as various schemes were dashed. The Northern Pacific Railroad chose Tacoma in 1873 as its terminus. Port Townsend’s own Port Townsend & Southern Railroad ran out of money after laying only one mile of track in 1889. After Washington got its statehood later in 1889, the Union Pacific offered to link Port Townsend along the Hood Canal to Olympia, if the town raised $100,000 and granted them the rights of way and franchise of the Port Townsend & Southern Railroad. All this was accomplished, but by November of 1890 the railway was bankrupt again. They managed to lay the rail to Quilcene at the foot of Mount Walker, which according to historian Steve Hauff in a Peninsula Daily News interview (2011): “somebody noticed that Mount Walker was there. They found there was really no way to get around this, and that was the end of it.” The Quilcene rail line ran for many years, but the dream of a western terminus was never realized for Port Townsend.

Romanesque Architecture

The years of speculation and hope that the dream of a railroad brought was the stimulus for the construction of some of Port Townsend’s most iconic buildings. The Jefferson County Courthouse, the Custom’s House and Post Office and the City Hall which was converted to Jefferson County Historical Society Museum in 1951.

Vintage by Port Townsend Wineries is located in the Clapp Building. Built by Cyrus F. Clapp in approximately 1885, it first housed Peyser Brother Dry Goods. This was followed by the Merchants Bank operated by Feuerbach and Clapp. Clapp was a major investor in the Port Townsend & Southern Railroad, after that venture failed the building had a variety of uses, but mostly it was a saloon. According to the Jefferson County Historical Society there was a 1930s sign found in a later renovation of the Clapp building that stated: “Dancing on Mill Pay Days Only.”

The Clam Cannery. The 6,482-square-foot building dates to 1873. It is now a private residence.

All three buildings were built in the Richardson Romanesque style with carved stonework, towers, and steep gabled copper roofs. Unfortunately, the City Hall lost its elaborate Richardson Romanesque style roof in a winter storm, and it was rebuilt with a flat roof. Likewise, the Post Office has had its roof replaced several times each time alternating between copper and slate. The strong winds of Port Townsend forced the Washington Street entrance of the Post Office to be permanently close. Located above this entrance are Corinthian style stone carvings that feature portraits of the S’Klallam chief Chetzemoka, his two wives, See-hem-itza and Chill-lil, and his older brother, S’Hai-ak. Chetzemoka was an important chief in the early settlement of Port Townsend, maintaining peace amongst the early settlers who called him the “Duke of York” as they had difficulty pronouncing his S’Klallam name. Unfortunately, these buildings were finished just as Port Townsend was hitting its first major slump.

The town had been precariously built on the prospect of a trading port – as its special drier climate (under the rain shadow of the Olympics) made its agricultural prospects limited and logging was never established (Southern Puget Sound’s ports filled the forestry gap already).

With the advent of steam, the dissolution of railway dreams, and in 1911 the loss of the Port of Entry status for Customs to Seattle, Port Townsend was barely propped up by the navy presence at Fort Worden (established in 1902).

It was not until 1927, with the establishment of a kraft-paper plant at Glen Cove by the National Paper Products Company (a Zellerbach Corporation) that a steady opportunity for employment allowed Port Townsend to grow again.

From then on, the town has steadily developed, but it has not experienced again a rabid boom like the railroad craze of the 1880s.

Many historians argue that besides the lucky absence of fire, the busts in the economy protected the celebrated Victorian architecture. Nothing was torn down to make way for new developments – leading many to describe Port Townsend as a town trapped in amber.

Now there are heritage conservation societies behind the scenes that tirelessly work to showcase the remarkably persevered architecture and to ensure further development is kept within the special aesthetic that is Port Townsend.