By ALLISON TRUNKEY
and RICHARD WALKER
GORST — Seabirds soar overhead. The tide floods in toward high banks. If you follow one of the rivulets upland from the shore, you’ll discover it becomes a salmon-bearing stream that winds its way through forest.
This is Gorst — not the Gorst familiar to most motorists, who still remember the sight of Toys Topless roadside. And if a plan approved by the county comes to fruition, Gorst could emerge by 2033 as a complete community with reclaimed waterfront for open space and recreational use, and neighborhoods with homes and local services.
According to a zoning plan developed in 2013 by Kitsap County in collaboration with the City of Bremerton, local businesses and residents, Gorst could someday be a community of 1,082 residents with businesses providing 333 jobs. A basalt mine will be reclaimed for a new neighborhood. Habitat will be restored and the watershed protected. Traffic congestion on State Route 3 will be reduced. (Online: www.kitsap gov.com/dcd/community_plan/subareas/gorst/final/Gorst_Final_Landuse_Plan.pdf)
The commercial district — what you see as you drive State Route 3 — reflects the zoning of the time: mining and high-intensity upland commercial development, and commercial and industrial development on the waterfront. Keeping that zoning in place was one of four alternatives considered during the subarea plan development process. Participants said they preferred making Gorst a complete community.
The softer side of Gorst
Get off of State Route 3, and you discover a different Gorst.
Residents dine on rib-eye steaks or sautéed prawns at Jimmy D’s Hwy 3 Roadhouse, enjoy pulled pork and sample local brews at the Wig Wam Pub, and dance at the Kitsap County Square Dance Club, a regional destination.
On Sundays, the Family Worship Center attracts worshippers from across Kitsap County. Pastor Devin Leith said his congregation includes residents of Belfair, Bremerton, Port Orchard and Silverdale. The church was established 30 years and has been in Gorst for the past 20.
The worship center’s motto: “A great place to call home.”
The New Heart Cowboy Church attracts worshippers from as far away as Auburn. “It’s a come-as-you-are church [with a] laid back atmosphere,” Pastor Jason Veach said. The church is located in a large log cabin, just off of Pleasant Street. It’s motto: “Come as you are,” which, according to Veach, also means “Come from wherever you are” — geographically and spiritually.
One church in Gorst reflects the diversity of the county’s population: the First Samoan Full Gospel Fellowship on Division Avenue. (Kitsap has the 13th highest population of Pacific Islanders and Native Hawaiians in the United States, according to the 2010 U.S. Census.)
At Otto Jarstad Park, off of Belfair Valley Road, four acres of fields, hills and forest make the highway drive there seem like a distant memory. On a recent Saturday, a group had reserved the covered picnic area, and children played and explored Gorst Creek, which supports summer and fall runs of chinook, chum and silver salmon. The sounds of the highway were muffled by the cloak of greenery and the sounds of the rushing creek.
Anderson and Gorst creeks wind through Gorst to Sinclair Inlet. Now, culverts are being replaced with larger, bridge-like box culverts to smooth the path, and create new spawning ground, for migrating salmon. The Suquamish Tribe operates the Gorst Creek Hatchery on Belfair Valley Road.
Off the beaten path, Gorst seems more like Pleasant Valley — the community’s original name — than a disheveled commercial district split in two by a highway.
Aviation history
Gorst takes its name from the Gorst family, which settled on 60 acres of land at the head of Sinclair Inlet in 1888. Local residents and businesses are proud of the town’s history, which is detailed on the Jimmy D’s Roadhouse website.
A son, Vern C. Gorst, “started to show his entrepreneurial spirit at a very young age,” the website states. “He had a deep fascination with transportation. His first business venture was started in his 13th year when he started to move chickens across Port Orchard Bay using a log raft that he constructed himself.
“As a young man, Mr. Gorst had several successful years of prospecting in Alaska during the Gold Rush. When he returned to Puget Sound, he invested his gold earnings in transportation for the area. A few decades later, he had created a number of successful transportation companies.
“His interest turned to aviation and at age 38 he became a self-taught pilot. He won the bid for the first contracted airmail service between Seattle and Los Angeles and Pacific Air Transport was created. Vern C. Gorst went on to create multiple airline companies before his death in the early 1950s.”
Pacific Air Transport later merged with three other companies to form United Airlines.
In search of an identity
Gorst is a place of contradictions.
It is its own community, but it’s part of the City of Bremerton’s urban growth area.
Prominent businesses like the Mattress Ranch (cue Ted Sadtler: “Get more sleep without counting sheep and have another night of bliss!”), Peninsula Subaru and Elandan Gardens are within the Gorst UGA but have Port Orchard addresses. Navy City Metals Recycling is located in Gorst, but its name suggests it’s located in Navy Yard City four miles north.
Off of SR 3, forests and creeks are habitat for numerous animal and plant species. But Gorst is also home to the Gorst Creek Landfill Site, which is undergoing a cleanup monitored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. From the 1950s until 1989, the landfill received auto wrecking waste as well as medical waste from Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, demolition debris and municipal solid waste.
As such, Gorst is a hard town to define.
One resident, a nursing manager who has lived in Gorst for more than 15 years, said she only interacts with her closest neighbors and select Gorst businesses, like Perfect Paws Pet Grooming (she has two dogs). But she likes Gorst because it’s a “direct connection” to surrounding areas — Belfair, Bremerton, Port Orchard, Silverdale.
The new front-facing wall of Stewart Wilson’s building, formerly Toys Topless. Photo by Allison Trunkey
Businesses fronting SR 3 have the benefit of exposure to potential customers. But some business owners say the speed at which cars travel preclude drivers from noticing businesses other than the ones they’re headed to.
Jennifer Waddell is owner of Perfect Paws Pet Grooming, located next to the Gas Mart in Gorst’s central business district. Perfect Paws has been there for just over a year and business is booming. But Waddell has concerns about the area, especially the often dangerous vehicle speeds and the layout of the highway.
As Waddell speaks, her furry charges skitter about the business’s bright interior. For a pet, it’s safe here. Outside, she said, where cars whiz by, not so much.
She’d like to see traffic slowed. “If they fixed the road, these businesses would do much better,” she said.
Pat Lockhart, owner of a local basalt quarry and possibly the largest property owner in Gorst, agrees. “I’m hoping they widen the road down there, put in a couple of [additional] lanes,” he said. “We’ve got so much traffic. Most people just want to get through it” and get out of town.
Initiating change
The building at the mouth of Gorst Creek doesn’t at all resemble the building that once housed Toys Topless.
Stewart Wilson purchased the property with a seamy reputation at a foreclosure sale a few years ago, cleaned up the site and renovated the 72-year-old building. New windows opened the building to views of the creek and bay, and the exterior features new cedar shingles.
Wilson said the site would be ideal for a restaurant or an antique store; one prospect is a professional wrestling school.
The conversion of the former Toys Topless to an attractive commercial building overlooking the natural environment is symbolic of what participants in the 2033 plan said they want in Gorst: “a complete community with places to live, play, shop and work in a waterfront setting … low-impact development techniques [that] create a sustainable, compact and enduring place. A place where views, cultural resources and critical areas are protected. A waterfront with trails, parks and reclaimed shoreline habitat.”
With the Gorst subarea plan, “We’re heading that way,” Lockhart said. “And that would be great for everybody.”
