Port Gamble, Washington
Battle of Port Gamble
The body of water was named by the Wilkes Expedition in 1841 after U.S. Navy Lt. Robert Gamble. The community, originally known as Teekalet, was founded as acompany town by Josiah Keller, William Talbot, and Andrew Pope's Puget Mill Company in 1853. In 1856, the USS Massachusetts was sent from Seattle to Port Gamble, Washington Territory on Puget Sound, where indigenous raiding parties from British and Russian territories had been raiding and enslaving local Native Americans. When the warriors refused to hand over those among them who had attacked the Puget Sound Native American communities,Massachusetts landed a shore party and a battle ensued in which 26 natives and 1 sailor were killed. In the aftermath of this, Colonel Isaac Ebey, the first settler on Whidbey Island, was shot and beheaded on August 11, 1857 by a Haidaraiding party in revenge for the killing of a native chief during similar raids the year before. British authorities demurred on pursuing or attacking the northern tribes as they passed northward through British waters off Victoria and Ebey's killers were never caught.
The first school in the county went up in 1859, and the community took its present name in 1868. In 1966, the town of Port Gamble was designated a National Historic Landmark District.[8] In 1985, Pope & Talbot, the successor company to Puget Mill, split into Pope & Talbot and Pope Resources, the latter of which took over the site and the sawmill. In 1995, the mill shut down after 142 years, making it the longest operating sawmill in the country.
Port Gamble was the setting of and filming location for the 2010 film ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction.