Our club was busy in March as we conducted a very successful food drive on March 24. Thank you to all who contributed to support our community including Albertsons and the Food Market for allowing us to use their properties.
We are actively supporting the 4th of July celebration with members volunteering to make it the success it has always been. The Boys and Girls Club will hold its annual Gala on April 21 and our club is gearing up to support them on this endeavor. A lot of work is required to make sure these two Kingston events are successful. We are planning a Bike Rodeo in May and will need volunteers to help with the logistics, so if you are inclined to volunteer call Helen Hoover at 360-731-8544.
Our speaker recently was Dan Baskins, a local land use manager and area historian, who gave us a presentation on some of Kingston’s history and was extremely interesting on the background on where we live. The original plat for Kingston was “Apple Tree Cove” and as far as I know is still listed as such. To our surprise we found out that Walla Walla was the first city to incorporate in Washington; we thought it was Port Gamble. According to Dan, Port Gamble was No. 4. After coming across the mountains, Walla Walla looked pretty good so many folks decided to homestead there.
When our seafarers were looking for navigation points, their charts indicated a point at the end of the peninsula that had a lighthouse. To their surprise there was no point, so they decided to call the area with no point “Point no Point.” That was a trivia question that would have stumped me.
The S’Klallam and Squamish tribes decided that Kingston was a small cove and not worth fishing and settled to fish and clam elsewhere. Kingston started to grow when a gentleman named Banister decided to open Kingston as a port and draw ships into the cove providing jobs and a feeling of community.
A logger by the name Mr. King arrived in Kingston and was impressed with the old growth trees and decided to open a sawmill in town. This is when the town began to grow and was named Kingston in honor of Mr. King.
A few more interesting tidbits concern Bond Road; the community had to sell bonds to build it, so they named the road “Bond Road.” It wasn’t paved until 1958 when the state decided that North Kitsap was worth a real road. Not much has changed. Dan will come back to our meeting to share more history about greater Kingston. Come on down and join us and learn what we are all about.
We meet each Thursday morning at the Village Green Community Center at 7 a.m., a full breakfast is served and everyone is welcome to attend. If you want to learn more about Kiwanis and our club contact our president, Rob Shoaf, at 907-306-7611, Membership Chairperson Jenn Menne at 360-626-3743, or myself, Bob Lee, at 360-509-9752. Have a great Kiwanis Day.
