Anderson Lake State Park History

Anderson Lake State Park offers a quiet place for fishing, walking or paddling in a landscape that has seen volcanoes, massive glaciers, and thousands of years of human connections.

Fire and Ice

The landscape around Anderson Lake was shaped by geologic events deep in the past. Well before the emergence of today’s volcanic peaks of Mount Rainier or Mount Baker, an oceanic tectonic plate began to sink beneath the edge of today’s Washington State. Uniquely, the sinking plate was itself being “unzipped” by forces pulling it apart, allowing a plume of heat from the earth’s interior to melt the continental rocks above the opening window. Volcanic eruptions above the surface deposited hot ash flows carrying chunks of older, solidified rock into valleys surrounding the volcano.

The new flows hardened into resistant rocks that, over many millions of years, formed a ridge on the eastern edge of today’s Anderson Lake State Park.

During the last Ice Age, the Puget Lobe of the ice cap advanced southward, filling the trough between the by-then-well-established Cascade and Olympic Mountains. As the ice advanced, it scraped against bedrock in its path and plucked out boulders, which the ice carried along. Eventually, ice more than 3,900-feet-thick covered the ridge formed by the ancient ash flow in today’s state park. The scouring action of the slowly-moving ice carved the basin that would eventually be filled by Anderson Lake.

As the great ice lobe began to melt, massive outflows of glacial meltwater scoured the ridge, eventually destabilizing it. At some point, a giant piece of the ridge detached and slumped to the east, carrying a massive chuck of bedrock within the landslide.

When the ice finally melted, the giant boulders that had been carried along in the flowing ice stayed where they were positioned when the ice advance halted. One such glacial erratic is Peregrine Rock, the largest erratic documented on the Quimper Peninsula. It is visible along the park’s Cascade Trail a short distance north of the huge pinnacle of bedrock.

Indigenous Lands

Anderson Lake State Park lies within the traditional territories of Coast Salish Indigenous people whose present-day descendants include members of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe, Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, Suquamish Tribe and Quileute Tribe.

For thousands of years this area has provided habitat for a diverse community of life that forms the basis of their cultures. The harbor now known as Port Townsend provided an important travel route utilizing portages between North Beach and Kah Tai Lagoon on the north and between Port Townsend and Oak Bay on the south to avoid treacherous currents and exposed water at Point Wilson and Marrowstone Point.

The Chemakum

The portage between Port Townsend and Oak Bay hosted the winter village site of a group of people known as the Chemakum. The Chemakum people speak a language similar to the Quileute people of the Pacific Ocean coast but markedly different from Lushootseed, the language of most other Puget Sound Indigenous people.

Non-Indigenous observers estimated that the Chemakum people had a population of around 400 members in the late 1700s and noted that they were frequently involved in conflict with neighboring S’Klallam and Suquamish people. In the mid-1800s, Suquamish Chief Seattle brokered an alliance with S’Klallam leaders by agreeing to jointly take revenge against the Chemakum.

According to historian David M. Buerge, a raiding party led by Chief Seattle and his son in the spring of 1847 approached the Chemakum village in the night and deployed warriors in a circle around the village. In the morning, a full-scale attack was launched, killing most of the village residents. Survivors sought asylum with other Indigenous people on Hood Canal and elsewhere.

Treaty of Point No Point

Local tribes ceded ownership of the area to the US federal government under duress in the Treaty of Point No Point in 1855, keeping rights to harvest natural resources in their usual and accustomed places, including the lands and waters around Port Townsend. One of the signatories of the treaty was Kul-kah-han (“General Pierce”) of the Chemakum.

Most S’Klallam tribal members refused to leave their homeland and move to the Skokomish Reservation as provided for in the treaty; some, under the leadership of Chief James Balch, purchased land on Dungeness Bay that became the village of Jamestown. Others purchased land near the Port Gamble lumber mill, where many found employment. The Port Gamble S’Klallam Reservation was established in 1938; The Jamestown S’Klallam Reservation was established in 1981.

Tamanowas Rock

On the eastern edge of today’s Anderson Lake State Park, the dramatic pinnacle of detached volcanic rock has been known to Indigenous people as Tamanowas Rock for thousands of years. Erosion has created caves, crevices and cliffs in the rock. According to the S’Klallam Tribes, Tamanowas Rock was used as a vantage point and place of refuge and is considered hallowed ground.

Land Disposal

The US Government Survey of the area including today’s Anderson Lake State Park was completed in 1863, opening the way for private ownership of the public domain lands that had been acquired by the US Government under the terms of the Point No Point Treaty.

In 1871, James Barry completed the requirements for “proving up” a homestead claim of 160 acres which included today’s park boat launch and developed day-use area. Some fruit trees planted on the homestead are still living.

Charles E. Anderson purchased 160 acres on the other side of the lake as a Cash Entry Patent, a type of sale of public domain lands, in 1873. The land was sold to William and Helen Anderson (who were apparently not related to Charles) in 1947. Eventually, the Andersons acquired all of the land surrounding the lake that came to bear the common surname of both William and Charles.

Anderson Lake Fish Farm

In 1958, the Washington Department of Fisheries poisoned and removed all existing fish in the lake to establish a Coho (Silver) salmon rearing pond. Over several years, more than 600,000 juvenile Coho were planted in the lake. Unfortunately, inadequate water flow from the lake’s intermittent outlet seriously hampered the operation, resulting in a survival rate of less than 1%. Attempts to trap and transport fish were unsuccessful as well.

Thor Tollefson, the department director, abandoned the project in 1966, saying, “Techniques enabling high production of good quality young salmon in fish farms at a reasonable cost have yet to be found.”

Making a Park

The Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission (WSPRC) approved an investigation into the feasibility of acquiring and developing a park at Anderson Lake in 1963.

The acquisition hinged on voter approval of Referendum 11, a measure “providing for the issuance and sale of state general obligation bonds in an amount not exceeding $10,000,000 to acquire land and appurtenances for outdoor public recreational use…”

Referendum 11 was designed to utilize a corporate tax authorized in 1959 to pay for the 1962 World’s Fair in Seattle. The tax was generating more revenue than was needed to pay off the fair’s bonds; the Referendum sought to utilize the surplus money to leverage federal matching funds to purchase and develop recreation areas. Supporters noted that “unless we act now, the best recreation sites will no longer be available at any price.” Opponents argued that “no expansion of outdoor facilities is needed.”

When the Andersons informed the WSPRC that they might not be able to wait for the outcome of the election to sell their land, the WSPRC investigated the possibility of a land trade or other type of transaction to assure its protection. With the assistance of The Nature Conservancy, a non-profit land protection organization, the WSPRC and the Andersons worked out an agreement for the Nature Conservancy to acquire one parcel of the property to be held for later transfer to the WSPRC and additional parcels to be acquired as funding was appropriated.

Referendum 11 passed with 58.57% voter approval in the general election on November 3, 1964. The final parcel was purchased from the Andersons on February 20, 1969. Anderson Lake State Park was dedicated on July 21, 1969.

In 2008, the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe purchased the land surrounding Tamanowas Rock to protect the sacred site from inappropriate development. Partnerships with the Jefferson Land Trust and the WSPRC have strengthened the protection of the area, and an adjoining tract of 70 acres was added to the park in 2012.