- Kitsap County — Thumbnail History (historylink.org)
Kitsap County, named after a military leader of the Suquamish Tribe, occupies the northern end of the Kitsap Peninsula between Hood Canal and Admiralty Strait. Loggers cleared the dense forests and fed sprawling mills and thriving company towns. Even before the mills went out of business, the U.S. Navy founded the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard at Bremerton, which became the centerpiece of the county’s economy and the largest single employer…
- The city of Bremerton, home to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility, was founded in 1891 by German immigrant William Bremer. The main part of the city is on the Kitsap Peninsula’s Point Turner, approximately 15 miles west of Seattle. The history of Bremerton and that of the navy base have always been inextricably entwined, with the fortunes of the former highly dependent on the activities of the latter. Bremerton made it through the ups and downs of a military-dominated economy for most of the twentieth century, but barely survived the 1980s when almost every major business enterprise moved to Silverdale, and significant military spending was diverted to the new Trident submarine base at Bangor. The city managed to hold on through the 1980s and 1990s, and in more recent years took steps to reinvent itself and revitalize its economy.