Island History
A short read on a long story. The island has been someone's home for thousands of years. What stayed, what changed, who's still telling it.
Anchors
Klol-Ehk-S
The Coast Salish name for the island was Klol-Ehk-S. The Steilacoom and Nisqually peoples used the island seasonally for cedar harvesting, shellfish, and fishing, drawing on its sheltered coves and forested interior long before any European arrived in the South Sound.
There's archaeological evidence of cedar work on the island that predates written history by generations. The pre-contact period is not a footnote — it's most of the island's actual human story.
The Wilkes Expedition, 1841
The United States Exploring Expedition under Commander Charles Wilkes charted the South Sound in 1841. As they mapped, they named. The island was given the name Anderson, after Alexander Caulfield Anderson, a Hudson's Bay Company trader stationed at nearby Fort Nisqually.
Anderson himself never set foot on the island. The name was a gesture of thanks for the hospitality the expedition received at the fort. It stuck anyway.
Earlier maps used other names for the island, including Fisgard Island and Wallace Island, before the Wilkes naming took hold on federal charts.
The man the island is named after spent his career working out of Fort Nisqually and what is now British Columbia. As far as any record shows, he never visited the place that bears his name.
Cordwood, Bricks, and a Farm
Permanent European settlement began around 1870, when Danish brothers Andrew and Christian Christensen arrived and began cutting cordwood on Amsterdam Bay. The wood went to the wood-burning steamers of the Puget Sound "Mosquito Fleet," and the cordwood trade brought the island into the regional economy.
Other Scandinavian immigrants followed — Swedes and Swede-Finns drawn to the forested, water-bound landscape. They cleared homesteads, built wharves, and ran a community that mostly depended on neighborly cooperation to survive.
In 1883, residents pooled $113.87 in lumber and labor to build the island's first schoolhouse, Wide Awake Hollow. A small brickyard operated from the late 1880s into the 1890s, supplying Seattle's post-fire rebuilding. In 1896, John O. Johnson established the Johnson Farm, which grew to house thousands of chickens and a dairy herd. The Christensens, the Johnsons, the Dahls, and the other early families gave the island the shape it still has.
The Short Version
A timeline for the skimmers. For the long version, the Anderson Island Historical Society is the authoritative source.
| Era | What Happened | What Remains |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-1841 | Steilacoom and Nisqually peoples use the island seasonally for cedar, shellfish, and fishing. | The name Klol-Ehk-S; archaeological evidence of cedar work. |
| 1841 | The Wilkes Expedition charts the South Sound and names the island after Alexander Anderson. | The name "Anderson Island" enters federal charts. |
| 1870s | Andrew and Christian Christensen begin cutting cordwood on Amsterdam Bay for the Mosquito Fleet steamers. | Permanent settlement begins. Wide Awake Hollow takes its name. |
| 1883 | Residents build the island's first schoolhouse with $113.87 in pooled lumber and labor. | The Wide Awake Hollow building is preserved by AIHS. |
| 1889–1893 | A brickyard operates to supply Seattle's rebuilding after the Great Fire. | Brick fragments still turn up on the shoreline. |
| 1896 | John O. Johnson establishes the Johnson Farm, which grows to thousands of chickens and a dairy herd. | The Johnson Farm museum complex. |
| Mid-1900s | The Riviera development is platted in the mid-20th century, eventually becoming the Riviera Community Club. | Roughly half the island's parcels. |
| 1970s | The Anderson Island Historical Society is founded; the Johnson family donates the farm to the community. | A volunteer-run museum and active archives. |
| 2004 | A California land company buys 400+ vacant Riviera lots and resells them to out-of-state buyers, mostly Californians, reshaping the island's parcel ownership. | Many off-island lot owners still hold parcels they've never seen. |
| Recent | Volunteers construct a 5,000-square-foot Archival Building to house the island's records. | A climate-controlled archive open to researchers. |
Anderson Island Historical Society
AIHS is the authoritative source for island history. They maintain the Johnson Farm museum, the Wide Awake Hollow schoolhouse, the Archival Building, and a growing collection of photographs, documents, and oral histories. Visit the museum, donate, or volunteer.
Visit AIHS →