Purdy, Washington

Location of Purdy in Washington

Purdy is a small unincorporated community and Census Designated Place north of the city of Gig Harbor, on the northern boundary of Pierce County, Washington, at the junction of Washington State Routes 16 and 302.

It is located on the shores of Burley Lagoon and Henderson Bay, Washington of the Carr Inlet. The two bodies of water are separated by a sandspit and the Purdy Bridge, all within the Puget Sound.

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

History

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

In 1884, one Isaac Hawk sold 19 acres (77,000 m²) of land originally purchased from the Washington Territorial Government for $23.75 to logger and Civil War veteran Horace Knapp (born March 23, 1845, in Titusville, Pennsylvania; died February 1, 1913, in Gig Harbor, Washington). On February 8, 1885, Knapp married Josephine Fuller, after which they moved to the Purdy area, making her the first white woman settler there.

The acres that Knapp had purchased were subdivided into lots and blocks to form the town of Purdy, which was named for Joseph W. Purdy, a grocer from Tacoma, Washington. Purdy donated the materials to construct a schoolhouse for the community in exchange for its naming rights; the land was donated by Knapp.

Knapp owned a floating logging camp on Burley Lagoon which included a cookhouse and bunks for the loggers.

A mill was built in 1885 by James Ashton, Joseph Purdy, William Rowland, and a Mr. Sherman. It was located on a small inlet of Burley Lagoon just down the hill from present day Peninsula High School. This small inlet is still referred to by locals as the "Mill Pond".

In 1886, the mill in Purdy secured the first contract to provide lumber for nearby Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton. This put Purdy on the map. The U.S. Government needed huge square timbers with one edge beveled in order to build a wooden drydock at Charleston (Bremerton). "All other mills based their costs on four trips of the carriage to remove the slabs, then an extra trip to cut the bevel. A mechanic at the Purdy mill set up an extra saw to cut the bevel on the fourth trip of the carriage, thus enabling the company to outbid all competition. The big cutting contract put Purdy on the map, and it was known as a 'brawling mill town'."

The mill's success also brought conveniences to the area such a grocery store, and a post office, the latter sited on Knapp's floating camp from 1886 to 1895 after which the function transferred to Springfield (Wauna, Washington). There was a long chute along present-day 144th Street that brought the logs down the hill to the water. The area's first Oyster factory was opened circa 1900 by a Mr Ouellette, known as "the Frenchman", to can oysters gathered from his land on the Purdy spit. Japanese oysters are still cultivated on Purdy's sandbars and in Burley Lagoon, 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. The modern-day Peninsula High School now sits on the hill where one of the original schoolhouses was built. The Second schoolhouse stood until 2015, when it was demolished to build a new home.

References

• "My Father", by Earl H. Knapp

External links

• Kitsap Peninsula Visitor Information - Purdy