Maury Island is a

tied island Tied islands, or land-tied islands as they are often known, are landforms consisting of an island that is connected to mainland or another island only by a tombolo: a spit of beach materials connected to land at both ends. St Ninian's Isle i ...

Puget Sound Puget Sound ( ) is a sound of the Pacific Northwest, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and part of the Salish Sea. It is located along the northwestern coast of the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected ma ...

in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

. It is connected to

Vashon Island Vashon is a census-designated place (CDP) in King County, Washington, United States. It covers an island alternately called Vashon Island or Vashon–Maury Island, the largest island in Puget Sound south of Admiralty Inlet. The population was 10, ...

by an

isthmus An isthmus (; ; ) is a narrow piece of land connecting two larger areas across an expanse of water by which they are otherwise separated. A tombolo is an isthmus that consists of a spit or bar, and a strait is the sea counterpart of an isthmus ...

built by local homeowners in 1913. Before construction of the isthmus, the island was connected to Vashon only during low tide. The island is rural with large areas of farmland, forest, and relatively undeveloped shoreline. Currently, environmental issues on the island are under considerable scrutiny. Maury Island was named in 1841 during the

Wilkes Expedition The United States Exploring Expedition of 1838–1842 was an exploring and surveying expedition of the Pacific Ocean and surrounding lands conducted by the United States. The original appointed commanding officer was Commodore Thomas ap Catesby ...

in honor of

William Lewis Maury William Lewis Maury (1813 – November 27, 1878) was an American explorer and naval officer who served in the United States Navy for over 32 years, assisting Charles Wilkes' exploration of the Pacific Ocean and served in Matthew C. Perry's 1854 n ...

, who between 1863 and 1864 raided Union ships on behalf of the Confederacy and is buried in Caroline County, Virginia. It was the site of the Maury Island incident, a case of an alleged encounter with a

UFO An unidentified flying object (UFO), more recently renamed by US officials as a UAP (unidentified aerial phenomenon), is any perceived aerial phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. On investigation, most UFOs are id ...

Point Robinson Light The Point Robinson Light is an operational aid to navigation and historic lighthouse on Puget Sound, located at Point Robinson, the easternmost point of Maury Island, King County, in the U.S. state of Washington. The site was listed on the Nati ...

is located on Point Robinson, the easternmost point on Maury Island. Dockton was once the site of a dry dock as well as a

salmon cannery A salmon cannery is a factory that commercially cans salmon. It is a fish-processing industry that became established on the Pacific coast of North America during the 19th century, and subsequently expanded to other parts of the world that had e ...

. Maury and Vashon Islands are home to the ''Vashon-Maury Island Community Council''. In the 1940s, Vashon had a chamber of commerce that acted more like a community council than a traditional chamber. By the 1950s, the precursor to today's community council was organized and called itself the "Civic Assembly." Today, the Community Council is charged with working to preserve the rural nature of Vashon and Maury Islands. Maury Island was also the center of controversy between the locals and Glacier Northwest, a company that supplies ready-mixed concrete owned by the

Taiheiyo Cement is a Japanese cement A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel (aggrega ...

Company of Japan. The company intended a 300-fold expansion of their existing gravel mine on the island, which was previously permitted to extract up to 20,000 tons per year. With the expansion, the company would have gained the capability to extract up to 40,000 tons per day. The opposition group made up of local islanders was known as Preserve Our Islands and staunchly advocated gathering more information before continuing mining operations on the island. The affected shoreline is located within the state's only existing aquatic preserve for notably diverse marine ecosystems. Opponents of the mine disputed many of the claims made by Glacier Northwest and alleged that the project will severely impact sensitive shoreline habita

On December 30, 2010 King County bought the property and took possession of the land, including the keys to the property gate. The council adopted King County Executive Dow Constantine's proposed purchase and sale of the property on December 6, including the adoption of his financing package. The King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks will now work with the community to improve the property for public open space, while restoring the ecological habitat for wildlife. The mile of shoreline that is part of the purchase is the longest undeveloped stretch of shore in King County, and will be a critical part of the region's wildlife habitat for fish, birds and Puget Sound marine life.

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* * {{authority control Islands of King County, Washington Islands of Washington (state) Islands of Puget Sound