Live in Seattle and want to get away from it all? Check out Gig Harbor. We spent two relaxing days over the 4th of July in this small waterside town of 7,800 residents which lies a mere 12 miles from Tacoma across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.
Gig Harbor takes its name from a small boat, known as a “gig” that Captain Charles Wilkes sailed into the tiny well-hidden harbor during a heavy storm in 1841. He later named the sheltered bay Gig Harbor. For centuries, the Twa-Wal-Kut band of the Puyallup Tribe had a longhouse and permanent camp at the head of the harbor. Three years later, three fisherman from Croatia, including Samuel Jerisich and, eventually many other immigrants from Sweden, Norway, and Croatia. They lived side-by-side with Native Americans. By 1888, the town was platted and the population had grown. Fishing, boat building and logging were Gig Harbor’s economic mainstay for decades.
Isolated from Tacoma and Seattle by Puget Sound and the Tacoma Narrows waterway, Gig Harbor could not be reached by automobile or horseback except via a very long and arduous trip south around Puget Sound. In 1940, the first mile-long Tacoma Narrows Bridge was built and created a direct–but short-lived–link. Galloping Gertie, as the bridge was later coined, collapsed just six months after it was completed and another bridge wasn’t built until 1950.
Today, Gig Harbor is still a small, quaint town filled with turn-of-the-century houses and a small, but lively, boat harbor. There are several state parks within a few miles of town, a few beaches and downtown Gig Harbor has a number of shops and several restaurants.
One of my favorite parts of the harbor are the historic ‘net sheds‘. The first net sheds appeared in Gig Harbor around 1910. These buildings, made from s rough, hand-hewn fir were used by local fishermen to store nets and fishing gear. As the town grew, many net sheds disappeared, replaced by commercial marinas. Today, only 17 nets sheds remain along the western shoreline, which is still the greatest concentration of the historic net sheds on the Sound.
I love old towns, their history and architecture, the stories about the people who once lived there. Gig Harbor is a lovely place to visit if you’re looking for all of this, and a little peace and quiet to go along with it.
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Take the road less traveled, Beth