Purdy, Washington

Last updated

Purdy
Census-designated place
Purdy WA.jpg
The town of Purdy with the Purdy Bridge and Purdy Sandspit visible in the background
USA Washington location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Purdy
Coordinates: 47°23′20″N122°37′31″W / 47.38889°N 122.62528°W / 47.38889; -122.62528
Country United States
State Washington
County Pierce
Unincorporated community Purdy
Area
 • Total2.34 sq mi (6.1 km2)
 • Land2.34 sq mi (6.1 km2)
Elevation
30 ft (9 m)
Population
 (2010)
 • Total1,544
ZIP code
98332 [1]
Area code 253
GNIS feature ID1512585 [2]
Purdy, Washington Purdy, Washington.jpg
Purdy, Washington

Purdy is a small unincorporated community and census-designated place north of the city of Gig Harbor, and at the junction of Washington State Routes 16 and 302 on the northern boundary of Pierce County, Washington. [3]

Contents

Purdy is on the shores of Burley Lagoon and Henderson Bay at the northern end of Carr Inlet in Puget Sound. The lagoon and bay are separated by a sandspit and the Purdy Bridge.

The Washington Corrections Center for Women, originally named the Purdy Treatment Center, is colloquially referred to as "Purdy", though it has a Gig Harbor address.

As of the 2010 US Census, Purdy had a population of 1544. [4]

History

Prior to white settlement, the area was inhabited by Native Americans , who fished and clammed on Henderson Bay. [5]

In 1884, one Isaac Hawk sold 19 acres (77,000 m2) of land for $23.75 (equivalent to $805in 2023). The purchaser was logger and Civil War veteran Horace Knapp (born March 23, 1845, in Titusville, Pennsylvania; died February 1, 1913, in Gig Harbor, Washington), who subdivided the land into lots and blocks to form the town of Purdy. [6] [7] The town's naming rights were taken by Joseph W. Purdy, a grocer from Tacoma, Washington, who had donated the materials to construct the community's first schoolhouse; the schoolhouse's land was donated by Knapp. [7] [8]

On February 8, 1885, Knapp married Josephine Fuller, after which they moved to the Purdy area, making her Purdy's first white female settler. [5] [6] [9] Knapp owned a floating logging camp on Burley Lagoon [8] which included a cookhouse and bunks for the loggers. [10]

A mill was built in 1885 by James Ashton, Joseph Purdy, William Rowland, and a Mr. Sherman on a small inlet of Burley Lagoon just down the hill from present day Peninsula High School. [6] In 1886, the Purdy mill secured its first contract to provide huge lumber with one edge beveled for the construction of a wooden dry dock at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in nearby Bremerton. The mill could underbid their competitors because they used an extra saw to cut the bevel, which allowed them to use only four trips of the saw carriage instead of five. [6] [8]

Purdy became known as a "brawling mill town". [6] The mill's success brought such conveniences as a grocery store and a post office to the area, [7] the latter sited on Knapp's floating camp from 1886 to 1895 after which the function transferred to Springfield (Wauna, Washington). [10] A long chute along present-day 144th Street brought logs down the hill to the water. [7] Mr Ouellette, known as "the Frenchman", began canning native Olympia oysters gathered from his land on the Purdy spit around 1900. He gathered these native oysters to near extinction. [3] Japanese oysters are still cultivated on Purdy's sandbars and in Burley Lagoon, [11] as are clams.

The original schoolhouse was abandoned in the 1890s. In 1900, the second Purdy Schoolhouse was built to replace it on land (also donated by Knapp) located on Sherman Avenue (present-day 68th Avenue). Students spent every other semester at either the Purdy Schoolhouse, or the Wauna Schoolhouse to keep both schools active. [6] The modern-day Peninsula High School now sits on the hill where one of the original schoolhouses was built. [7] [8] The Second schoolhouse stood until 2015, when it was demolished to build a new home.[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Puget Sound</span> Deep water sound of the Salish Sea in northwestern Washington, United States

Puget Sound is a sound on the northwestern coast of the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected marine waterways and basins. A part of the Salish Sea, Puget Sound has one major and two minor connections to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which in turn connects to the open Pacific Ocean. The major connection is Admiralty Inlet; the minor connections are Deception Pass and the Swinomish Channel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pierce County, Washington</span> County in Washington, United States

Pierce County is a county in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2020 census, the population was 921,130, up from 795,225 in 2010, making it the second-most populous county in Washington, behind King County, and the 59th-most populous in the United States. The county seat and largest city is Tacoma. Formed out of Thurston County on December 22, 1852, by the legislature of Oregon Territory, it was named for U.S. President Franklin Pierce. Pierce County is in the Seattle metropolitan area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gig Harbor, Washington</span> City in Washington, United States

Gig Harbor is the name of both a bay on Puget Sound and a city on its shore in Pierce County, Washington. The population was 12,029 at the 2020 census.

Oyster Bay may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barnegat Bay</span> Bay in New Jersey

Barnegat Bay is a small brackish arm of the Atlantic Ocean, approximately 42 miles (68 km) long, along the coast of Ocean County, New Jersey in the United States. It is separated from the Atlantic by the long Island Beach State Park, as well as by the north end of Long Beach Island, popular segments of the Jersey Shore. The bay is fed by several small rivers, including the Toms River, the Forked River, the Metedeconk River, Cedar Creek, Oyster Creek, Mill Creek, Westecunk Creek, and Tuckerton Creek, all of which empty into the bay through small estuaries along its inner shore. The communities of Toms River, Silverton, and Forked River sit along the river estuaries on the bay.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kitsap Peninsula</span> Peninsula in Puget Sound, Washington, United States

The Kitsap Peninsula lies west of Seattle across Puget Sound, in Washington state in the Pacific Northwest. Hood Canal separates the peninsula from the Olympic Peninsula on its west side. The peninsula, a.k.a. "Kitsap", encompasses all of Kitsap County except Bainbridge and Blake Islands, as well as the northeastern part of Mason County and the northwestern part of Pierce County. The highest point on the Kitsap Peninsula is Gold Mountain. The U.S. Navy's Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, and Naval Base Kitsap are on the peninsula. Its main city is Bremerton.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Washington State Route 16</span> State highway in the U.S. state of Washington

State Route 16 (SR 16) is a 27.16-mile-long (43.71 km) state highway in the U.S. state of Washington, connecting Pierce and Kitsap counties. The highway, signed as east–west, begins at an interchange with Interstate 5 (I-5) in Tacoma and travels through the city as a freeway towards the Tacoma Narrows. SR 16 crosses the narrows onto the Kitsap Peninsula on the partially tolled Tacoma Narrows Bridge and continues through Gig Harbor and Port Orchard before the freeway ends in Gorst. The designation ends at an intersection with SR 3 southwest of the beginning of its freeway through Bremerton and Poulsbo. SR 16 is designated as a Strategic Highway Network (STRAHNET) corridor within the National Highway System as the main thoroughfare connecting Tacoma to Naval Base Kitsap and a part of the Highways of Statewide Significance program.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Point Defiance Park</span> Urban park in Tacoma, Washington, U.S.

Point Defiance Park in Tacoma, Washington, United States, is a large urban park. The 760-acre (3.1 km2) park includes Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium, the Rose Garden, Rhododendron Garden, beaches, trails, a boardwalk, a boathouse, a Washington State Ferries ferry dock for the Point Defiance-Tahlequah route to Vashon Island, Fort Nisqually, an off-leash dog park, and most notably about 400 acres of old-growth forest. It receives more than three million visitors every year. Point Defiance Park is maintained and operated by Metro Parks Tacoma.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Washington State Route 302</span> State highway in the U.S. state of Washington

State Route 302 (SR 302) is a 16.87-mile-long (27.15 km) state highway in the U.S. state of Washington, connecting the communities of Allyn and Purdy on the Kitsap Peninsula, located in Mason and Pierce counties. The highway travels southeast from SR 3 in Allyn-Grapeview along North Bay and turns east along Henderson Bay to Purdy. SR 302 intersects its spur route and turns south, ending at an interchange with SR 16 at the north end of Gig Harbor. The highway was created during the 1964 highway renumbering to replace Secondary State Highway 14A (SSH 14A) between Allyn and Purdy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Key Peninsula</span>

The Key Peninsula lies along Puget Sound to the south of Kitsap Peninsula in the U.S. state of Washington. It is part of Pierce County and is bordered to the west by Case Inlet and to the east by Carr Inlet. The peninsula is approximately 16 miles (26 km) long and has two Washington State Parks.

Burley is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Kitsap County, Washington, United States. It is located just north of the boundary with Pierce County, about halfway between Gig Harbor to the south and Port Orchard to the north. It is located at the head of the Burley Lagoon in Henderson Bay. Burley is a residential area. The community's population stood at 2,081 at the 2020 census.

The Peninsula School District is the main school district for the city of Gig Harbor, Washington, USA and the unincorporated areas around Gig Harbor and the Key Peninsula. These areas include Artondale, Arletta, Rosedale, Purdy, Wollochet, Vaughn, Lakebay, Longbranch, Home, Wauna, Crescent Valley and the Kopachuck area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peninsula High School (Washington)</span> Public school

Peninsula High School is a public high school on a hill overlooking Henderson Bay and Burley Lagoon, in Purdy, north of the city of Gig Harbor, Washington, USA. The school is part of the Peninsula School District.

The Manette Peninsula is a headland that is part of the larger Kitsap Peninsula, located on the eastern flank of the Kitsap Peninsula, in western Washington, United States.

Carr Inlet, in southern Puget Sound in the U.S. state of Washington, is an arm of water between Key Peninsula and Gig Harbor Peninsula. Its southern end is connected to the southern basin of Puget Sound. Northward, it separates McNeil Island and Fox Island. The northern end of Carr Inlet is named Henderson Bay, which feeds into Burley Lagoon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Purdy Bridge</span> United States historic place

The Purdy Bridge is a continuous reinforced concrete box girder bridge that spans 550 feet (170 m), with a central span of 190 feet (58 m), between Henderson Bay and Burley Lagoon. The bridge connects Purdy, Washington with the Purdy Sand Spit Park and Wauna, Washington.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Woodard Bay Natural Resources Conservation Area</span> United States historic place

Woodard Bay Natural Resources Conservation Area is a natural reserve in Olympia, Washington protected under the Washington Natural Areas Program. Once an important processing facility for the logging industry, it has been designated as the Weyerhaeuser South Bay Log Dump Rural Historic Landscape. Today the area is a renowned sanctuary for a variety of birds, harbor seals, river otters, bald eagles, and a colony of bats, as well as serving as an important great blue heron rookery. A recent conservation program in the area between the State of Washington and the Nature Conservancy is the first of its kind in the country.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Burley Lagoon</span>

Burley Lagoon is a picturesque 358-acre (1.45 km2) watershed located on the Key Peninsula in the U.S. state of Washington. The Purdy Bridge and Purdy Sand Spit separate Burley Lagoon from Henderson Bay at the northern end of Carr Inlet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harbor History Museum</span>

The Harbor History Museum is a regional maritime and history museum in Gig Harbor, Washington. It hosts exhibits on regional culture and history, and Midway Schoolhouse, a one-room schoolhouse built in 1893 and moved to the museum's grounds in 2009. The museum won the Washington Museum Association annual Award of Project Excellence for an ongoing living history program called Midway Pioneer School Experience that leads grade-school students through a day in an early 20th century classroom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">South Puget Sound</span> Region in Washington, United States

South Puget Sound is the southern reaches of Puget Sound in Southwest Washington, in the United States' Pacific Northwest. It is one of five major basins encompassing the entire Sound, and the shallowest basin, with a mean depth of 37 meters (121 ft). Exact definitions of the region vary: the state's Department of Fish and Wildlife counts all of Puget Sound south of the Tacoma Narrows for fishing regulatory purposes. The same agency counts Mason, Jefferson, Kitsap, Pierce and Thurston Counties for wildlife management. The state's Department of Ecology defines a similar area south of Colvos Passage.

References

  1. ↑ "Purdy WA ZIP Code". zipdatamaps.com. 2023. Retrieved June 16, 2023.
  2. ↑ "Purdy, Washington". Geographic Names Information System . United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior . Retrieved June 9, 2016.
  3. 1 2 "Gig Harbour Community Plan". Pierce County Washington. Retrieved December 15, 2015.
  4. ↑ "Purdy, Washington Population" . Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  5. 1 2 Slater, Colleen (November 2004). "From Pioneer Stock: First White Woman Settler on Henderson Bay". Key Peninsula News. 31 (11): 16.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 1974-75 Students of, Goodman Middle School (1979). Along the Waterfront. Clinton Hull Publishing Co., Ltd. pp. 80–82.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 Peninsula Historical Society
  8. 1 2 3 4 The Tacoma Times, June 11, 1948, "Old Purdy School Building Recalls Early Settlement"
  9. ↑ The Tacoma Times, March 19, 1939, "First White Woman to Live at Henderson Bay Expires"
  10. 1 2 "Key Peninsula News" (PDF). 36 (1). January 2008. Retrieved December 11, 2008.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  11. ↑ Project, Federal Writers' (October 31, 2013). The WPA Guide to Washington: The Evergreen State. Trinity University Press. p. 500. ISBN   9781595342454 . Retrieved December 11, 2015.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.