Port of Silverdale

On April 13, 1920, the Port of Silverdale is formed by a citizen vote in a special election. Silverdale is an unincorporated community in Kitsap County located on the northern tip of the Dyes Inlet on the Kitsap Peninsula. The port will serve boats and will ease the transportation of people and goods to and from Silverdale. The port will lie dormant from 1950 until 1965, but it will revive and provide Old Town Silverdale with a beautiful park, a boat launch, a fixed pier, and transient boat moorage floating docks. In the twenty-first century, the port will focus on the economic development of Old Town Silverdale.

From Logging to Farming

Silverdale, a community of about 15,000, lies about seven miles north of Bremerton. Loggers first came to the area in 1854, beginning their operations on the shoreline and then moving inland. They lived in floating bunkhouses moored along the shoreline. Scandinavian immigrants, the first permanent settlers to Silverdale, arrived in the 1880s. The new settlers pulled and burned stumps left by loggers and started farms. In 1887, Silverdale farmers formed the Farmer’s Cooperative and sold their surplus crops, as well as eggs, chickens, and milk, to Bremerton and Seattle markets. They relied on the Silverdale wharf and dock and the burgeoning Puget Sound Mosquito Fleet (privately owned steamers so numerous that they were said to "swarm") to transport their crops.

The community grew around the wharf and by 1920 featured the Silverdale State Bank, hotels, and stores. The Bremerton News noted on April 7, 1920, that Silverdale would soon have a drugstore and a bakery. With the formation of a Silverdale Port District, the community could continue to grow.