Dash Point State Park History

Dash Point State Park provides access to the shores and undersea gardens of Puget Sound in one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States. The woodsy ravine behind the park’s beach can be explored on miles of trails, and visitors enjoy camp life just minutes from the homes of millions of people.  

Indigenous Lands 

Dash Point State Park lies within the traditional territories of Coast Salish Indigenous people whose present-day descendants include members of the Puyallup Tribe, Muckleshoot Indian Tribe and Nisqually Indian Tribe. For thousands of years, the shoreline and wooded ravines have provided habitat for a diverse community of life that forms the basis of their cultures. Coast Salish Indigenous cultures are intertwined with the lives of salmon, deer and the sprouts, roots, bulbs, berries and nuts gathered on the land. 

Treaty and Conflict 

Local tribes ceded ownership of the area to the US federal government under duress in the Treaty of Medicine Creek in 1854. Poor communication at the treaty council and provocations by territorial officials and local settlers afterwards led to armed conflict between allied tribes led by Chief Leschi and others against US government forces and militias. Indian Agent Michael Simmons ordered all noncombatant tribal members to an internment camp on Fox Island, 10 miles southwest of Dash Point, in November 1855.  Tribal members not at the camp were presumed to be hostile by the military units in the field. Internees faced difficult wintertime conditions with poor shelter, inadequate food and lack of medical care. Of approximately 700 people at the site, 80 internees died just between May and September 1856, mostly from respiratory diseases such as tuberculosis.  

The Medicine Creek Treaty was renegotiated at the Fox Island Council in August 1856. Attended by Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens, Indian Agent Michael Simmons, US military leaders and Dr. William F. Tolmie, the Council did not include Chief Leschi, who had surrendered to US Army Colonel George Wright in Naches east of the Cascade Mountains. The parties reached an agreement to relocate and enlarge the Nisqually and Puyallup Reservations and add the Muckleshoot Reservation. The treaty revisions were approved by President Franklin Pierce on January 20, 1857. 

About 40% of today’s park area falls within the boundary of the Puyallup Indian Reservation as delineated in the amended Treaty of Medicine Creek. After government land surveys were completed in 1868, land in today’s Dash Point State Park adjacent to the reservation passed into private ownership with a Homestead Entry Patent to Calvin King on April 25, 1877.  

In 1887 the US Congress passed the Dawes Act which created land allotments for tribal members on reservation lands and authorized the sale of other reservation lands to non-tribal people or corporations. Much of the Puyallup Reservation was sold out of tribal ownership, including lands making up today’s Port of Tacoma and part of today’s Dash Point State Park. 

Saving the Beach for the People 

The establishment of Dash Point State Park was initiated by a letter sent to the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission by Carl Anderson in 1957. Anderson noticed the property in today’s park had been platted for development and was listed for sale. Anderson had grown up swimming, fishing and digging for clams on the beaches at Dash Point and had dreamed of the site becoming a public park since his youth. In the letter he said “Now, at long last, my dream of a perfect salt water state park is at hand.” Quoted in a newspaper article, Charles DeTurk, a parks planner remarked, “Ordinarily we can’t investigate all the suggested park sites we receive, but Anderson’s description of the area was so vivid we played a hunch, made an appointment with him, and he showed us the area he had in mind. It was ideal!” The Commission moved quickly to acquire the 272 acres of land, and the sale was executed on July 22, 1958. Dash Point State Park was dedicated in a ceremony presided over by Governor Albert Rosellini on June 10, 1962. On July 31, 2018, a park bench was dedicated to Carl Anderson to honor his contribution to the establishment of the park.