- Oyster Dome (wa100.dnr.wa.gov)
Take an invigorating hike up Blanchard Mountain, located south of Lake Samish, to the geologic treasure known as Oyster Dome—a rounded, rocky promontory with spectacular views of the San Juan Islands and the Olympic Mountains. Oyster dome is located in the 4,500-acre Blanchard State Forest, the only place in Washington where the Cascade Mountains meet the Salish Sea.
- Oyster Dome (wta.org)
Oyster fishing and logging were the dominant industries in the Chuckanut area from the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries. The forest lands of Blanchard Mountain became state trust lands in the 1920s and 1930s, giving the forest a needed respite. Much of the forest on Blanchard is second-growth; logging artifacts can be seen on the trail, and giant stumps inspire imagination about the towering cathedral forests that blanketed the mountain prior to logging.
- Tacoma — Thumbnail History (historylink.org)
Tacoma epitomizes the cultural, economic, social, and technological development of the Puget Sound region and the entire state of Washington. Situated above Commencement Bay on scenic bluffs that were home to the Puyallup Tribe and other native peoples for millennia, the county seat of Pierce County possesses a natural harbor that was admired by the sound’s earliest Euro-American explorers. Tacoma won the prize of the era in 1873 when the Northern Pacific Railroad selected it as its western terminus. Tacomans have since established their community as a regional center for Pacific Rim shipping, forest products, high technology, and the arts. Ranked in the 2000 census as Washington’s third-largest city, Tacoma in the early years of the twenty-frist century embarked on an urban renaissance, with the construction of light rail transit, new museums and cultural centers, and a state-of-the-art telecommunications network.