TEAMS OF OXEN AND HORSES stepped aside for steam donkeys and locomotives in the early decades of the logging industry here.

Local history begins with the thrusting up of Olympic Mountains, the melting of ice masses that carved and filled Puget Sound, and the arrival of peoples from what is now known as Asia.

The First People in the county were the Twana people on Hood Canal, the Sa-he-wamish on Oakland Bay, and other clans of what is now known as the Squaxin tribe on other Puget Sound islands and inlets.

More recent highlights include:

1853

Among the first settlers in Mason County were Hugh Goldsborough, who filed a donation land claim on March 15, and his partner, Michael Simmons, who filed for a mill site at the mouth of Gosnell Creek (now Mill Creek) on Hammersley in September. In May, David Shelton settled at the head of the inlet, making his claim the next winter. In the upper Skokomish, where Moses Kirkland had settled his family, word came of Shelton’s arrival. Local lore says Kirkland fumed, “This country is getting too damn thick with people!”

March 8, 1854: David Shelton introduced a bill in territorial legislature to establish Sawamish County, with the county seat at Oakland on the bay north of Shelton. Ten years later, the county was renamed after the territorial secretary of state, C. H. Mason.

Winter 1854-1855: South Puget Sound tribes ceded their lands to the United States in the Medicine Creek Treaty December 26, 1854. The treaty established a reservation on Squaxin Island. On January 26, 1855, the tribes of Hood Canal signed the Point No Point Treaty, accepting a reserve at the mouth of the Skokomish River.

1858: Union City was founded, and kept the hopeful name until 1904.

1878: Walter Eckert established a vineyard on the island named for the Wilkes Expedition’s gunner’s mate Samuel Stretch. The area became known as Grapeview.

November, 1881: John Slocum, son of Sa-heh-wamish chief Old Slocum, fell and broke his neck, but revived. A second resurrection gave rise to the Indian Shaker Church, a mix of traditional ceremonial and Christianity.

December 31, 1886: Young Grant Angle published the first issue of the Mason County Journal. Mason County had 809 people, 12 school districts and mail delivery twice a week by steamer. Railroads arrived in Mason County the same year.

April 28, 1888: In a hot election for county seat, Shelton (originally Sheltonville) defeated Union City. Two days after Union Pacific railroad crews landed in Union City, the Panic of 1893 ended rail-terminus dreams.

1889: Judge Frank Allyn of Tacoma helped form the town of Allyn. Joe Sherwood’s mill, on the creek that bears his name, and oyster farming became local mainstays.

1891: S.K. Taylor began harvesting Little Skookum native oysters for an eager market in 1891. Diked beds were built in Big Skookum, Oakland Bay, Oyster Bay and North Bay.

September 9, 1902: Forests all over Mason County were on fire. A shingle from a shed burning in Matlock blew three miles into Deckerville, where the school burned down. Two logging camps were destroyed by fire, and the Journal editor made reporting rounds with a lantern.

1912: Mark Reed built his Lumbermen’s Mercantile and office out of fireproof concrete block. (It’s the 1912 Building at Third and Railroad today).

August, 1914: Seventeen buildings burned in downtown Shelton. Brick and concrete structures replaced them.

1915: Belfair got its name. Two years earlier, the Clifton Post Office closed because no one wanted to be postmaster. When the community saw the need for a post office in 1915, another town had the name; “Belfair” was chosen in a contest.

September 8, 1921: The Port of Allyn was established.

1924: Mark Reed virtually rebuilt Shelton, filling waterfront for the first mills. He and his wife donated land and construction for Irene S. Reed High School on Alder Street, now site of the city library. The Reeds also built a colonial-style mansion at Third and Pine.

Spring, 1926: April saw incorporation of the Rainier Pulp and Paper Company. By the end of the decade, a soft market turned researchers toward a new product. The development of pulp for making rayon changed the name of the mill to Rayonier. In May, 1926, President Calvin Coolidge sent the electrical impulse that started the Cushman Dam powerhouse. The rising lake covered the Antlers Lodge, a Lake Cushman landmark since the 1890s. In the 1930s, the Skokomish Indian Tribe sued to attempt to stop construction of a second dam on the Skokomish River, an important salmon and steelhead stream, but lost. The issue remains contentious.

Spring, 1930: Mason County’s new courthouse was designed by architect Joseph Wohleb and faced with sandstone from Tenino.

1937: Belfair began to use its new school building constructed of stone and peeled logs by 14 Works Progress Administration builders. The facility had a gym and four classrooms.

May, 1945: In an effort to reduce the ravages of forest fires, county industries and civic leaders organized a Forest Festival with a Keep Washington Green theme. Festivities included a parade and logging show and a pageant with a conservation theme.

1960: The closing of the Rayonier mill changed the economy of Shelton. Rayonier ran its research facility on the Shelton waterfront until the mid-’90s.

December 29, 1967: An act of Congress declared land at Kamilche to be held in trust for the Squaxin Island Indian Tribe, which until then had a waterless island as its reservation.

1968: On the death of Sam Theler, a longtime area businessman, the North Mason School District received the 72 acres of natural wetlands that now make up the Theler Wetlands.

October, 1982: The reviving shellfish industry gave rise to a county emphasis on water quality and came to the forefront with the establishment of OysterFest as a major festival and tourist attraction.

Sources include local histories by Michael Fredson, Berwyn Thomas, Harry Deegan and Irene Davis, and Stewart Holbrook’s The Green Commonwealth. All are available for reference, and some for purchase, at the Mason County Historical Museum.