unincorporated community
An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
and
census-designated place
A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only.
CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...
north of the city of
Gig Harbor
Gig Harbor () is the name of both a bay on Puget Sound and a city on its shore in Pierce County, Washington. The population was 12,029 at the 2020 census.
Gig Harbor bills itself as "the Maritime City" and maintains a strong connection to its ...
, and at the junction of Washington State Routes 16 and 302 on the northern boundary of
Pierce County, Washington
Pierce County is a County (United States), county in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 921,130, up from 795,225 in 2010, making it the second-most populous ...
.
Purdy is on the shores of Burley Lagoon and Henderson Bay at the northern end of Carr Inlet in Puget Sound. The lagoon and bay are separated by a sandspit and the Purdy Bridge.
The Washington Corrections Center for Women, originally named the Purdy Treatment Center, is colloquially referred to as "Purdy", though it has a Gig Harbor address.
As of the 2010 US Census, Purdy had a population of 1544.
History
Prior to white settlement, the area was inhabited by Native Americans, who fished and clammed on Henderson Bay.
In 1884, one Isaac Hawk sold of land for $23.75 (). The purchaser was logger and
Civil War
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...
veteran Horace Knapp (born March 23, 1845, in
Titusville, Pennsylvania
Titusville is a city in the far eastern corner of Crawford County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 5,262 at the 2020 census. Titusville is known as the birthplace of the American oil industry and for a number of years was the le ...
; died February 1, 1913, in
Gig Harbor, Washington
Gig Harbor () is the name of both a bay on Puget Sound and a city on its shore in Pierce County, Washington, Pierce County, Washington (state), Washington. The population was 12,029 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census.
Gig Harbor bills ...
), who subdivided the land into lots and blocks to form the town of Purdy. The town's naming rights were taken by Joseph W. Purdy, a grocer from
Tacoma, Washington
Tacoma ( ) is the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. A port city, it is situated along Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, southwest of Bellevue, Washington, Bellevue, northeast of the state capital, Olympia ...
, who had donated the materials to construct the community's first schoolhouse; the schoolhouse's land was donated by Knapp.
On February 8, 1885, Knapp married Josephine Fuller, after which they moved to the Purdy area, making her Purdy's first white female settler. Knapp owned a floating
logging
Logging is the process of cutting, processing, and moving trees to a location for transport. It may include skidder, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or trunk (botany), logs onto logging truck, trucksThe Tacoma Times, June 11, 1948, "Old Purdy School Building Recalls Early Settlement" which included a cookhouse and bunks for the loggers.
A mill was built in 1885 by James Ashton, Joseph Purdy, William Rowland, and a Mr. Sherman on a small inlet of Burley Lagoon just down the hill from present day Peninsula High School. In 1886, the Purdy mill secured its first contract to provide huge lumber with one edge
bevel
A bevelled edge (UK) or beveled edge (US) is an edge of a structure that is not perpendicular to the faces of the piece. The words bevel and chamfer overlap in usage; in general usage, they are often interchanged, while in technical usage, they ...
ed for the construction of a wooden
dry dock
A dry dock (sometimes drydock or dry-dock) is a narrow basin or vessel that can be flooded to allow a load to be floated in, then drained to allow that load to come to rest on a dry platform. Dry docks are used for the construction, maintenance, ...
at
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, officially Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility (PSNS & IMF), is a United States Navy shipyard covering 179 acres (0.7 km2) on Puget Sound at Bremerton, Washington in uninterrupted ...
in nearby
Bremerton
Bremerton is a city in Kitsap County, Washington, United States. The population was 43,505 at the 2020 census and an estimated 44,122 in 2021, making it the largest city on the Kitsap Peninsula. Bremerton is home to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard ...
. The mill could underbid their competitors because they used an extra saw to cut the bevel, which allowed them to use only four trips of the saw carriage instead of five.
Purdy became known as a "brawling mill town". The mill's success brought such conveniences as a grocery store and a post office to the area,Peninsula Historical Society the latter sited on Knapp's floating camp from 1886 to 1895 after which the function transferred to Springfield ( Wauna, Washington). A long chute along present-day 144th Street brought logs down the hill to the water. Mr Ouellette, known as "the Frenchman", began canning native Olympia oysters gathered from his land on the Purdy spit around 1900. He gathered these native oysters to near extinction.Japanese oysters are still cultivated on Purdy's sandbars and in Burley Lagoon, as are clams.
The original schoolhouse was abandoned in the 1890s. In 1900, the second Purdy Schoolhouse was built to replace it on land (also donated by Knapp) located on Sherman Avenue (present-day 68th Avenue). Students spent every other semester at either the Purdy Schoolhouse, or the Wauna Schoolhouse to keep both schools active. The modern-day Peninsula High School now sits on the hill where one of the original schoolhouses was built. The Second schoolhouse stood until 2015, when it was demolished to build a new home.