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Driving south on the improved highway just past today’s Key Center, May 1923.
The Story of the KP Highway, Part II
A two-part series on the history of the peninsula’s most important arterial. more
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Undated photo of Ira Creviston (left) and his brothers falling a giant on the Key Peninsula.
The Story of the Key Peninsula Highway: Part I
A two-part series on the history of the peninsula’s most important arterial from its forgotten origin to the present. more
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The legendary KP Unicorns made a stop at the new farmers market on the Key Peninsula.
Summertime Events on the Key Peninsula
Summer is the perfect season for getting outside, meeting people, enjoying the outdoors and discovering the talents of your neighbors on the KP. more
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The Union High School football team in 1937 outside what is now the Whitmore Room at KPCC.
The Key Peninsula Civic Center Turns 70
From its humble origin as a two-room schoolhouse, it has become the “apex of social and cultural activity on the Key Peninsula.” more
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Nicole Niemann-Carr cleans her father’s headstone for Memorial Day.
Vaughn Bay Cemetery Goes Digital with State Grant
A new online mapping and records system keeps more than a century of local burial information. more
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Mrs. Bradley, Halloween at Lewis Lake, 1925.
When the Montanans Invaded
Editor’s note: This is the first installment of a two-part article. Next month, read more about the Lewis Lake residents and find out what the Lewis Lake community on the Key Peninsula is called … more
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From this bluff at Devil’s Head in Longbranch, children playing one fall evening in 1960 saw what they described as a silent, glowing craft above the trees — a memory that still lingers more than six decades later.
Close Encounters of the Key Peninsula Kind
From Devil’s Head to Rocky Bay, there are decades of unexplained sightings in the sky. more
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Sea Serpents of the South Sound Elude but Entertain
News stories from the 1800s recount possible close calls with sea creatures near the mysterious waters of the Key Peninsula. more
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VBPLA Vice President Lillie Visell with young patrons shortly after the library moved to the civic center in 1957.
From Vaughn to Key Center: A Library for the Key Peninsula
Part 2 of a two-part series on the Vaughn Bay Public Library Association. more
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Hidden from view for years behind a thick wall of overgrown brush, this old house held enough charm to suggest possibilities.
Reviving a Revival in Longbranch
Retired ferry captain Dave Minshall is carefully transforming a 1936 Tudor Revival with Craftsman charm. more
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The ladies of the Vaughn Bay Public Library Association on a visit to Tacoma in 1906.
The Story of the Vaughn Bay Public Library Association
The story of public lending libraries in the United States is one of activist women committed to opening minds in their communities. more
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The Pioneer Days parade route through Key Center in 1987.
‘Finding the Center’ at the KP History Museum
The 2025 exhibit traces the history of the Key Peninsula’s commercial hub from its unlikely beginning through its near destruction. more
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The relaunched Western Flyer in June 2022, before receiving her new mast.
Relics for Sale: Of Steinbeck, Ricketts, Western Flyer and the KP
Original parts from the Western Flyer, famed for Steinbeck's 1940 "Sea of Cortez" voyage, head to auction, linking maritime and literary history. more
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Steel remnants of WWI-era ships lie rusted and encrusted with barnacles and mussels along the mouth of Minter Creek. These haunting relics emerge at low tide, revealing a bygone era of Tacoma’s shipbuilding history.
Eerie Remains of WWI History Are Lurking in Henderson Bay
Henderson Bay is home to nearly 100-year-old steel remnants of burned World War I-era wooden ships that help tell the story of Tacoma’s shipbuilding boom during that time. more
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Seattle mapmaker Oliver P. Anderson ca. 1889.
The Many Names of Filucy Bay: A Saga Told and a Mystery Solved
It may be the misreading that launched a thousand theories, leaving storytellers, historians, and the entire community in Filucy Bay with a riddle on their hands. more
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Undated photo of William Sipple by Cliff Bartells in “Early Days of the Key Peninsula.”
The Storyteller and the Princess: The Mystery of Filucy Bay
This closer look at the legend of how the bay got its name helps us understand the breadth of the Key Peninsula's history. First installment of a two-part series. more
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Isaac Pennypacker Hawk filed the first land claim on the Key Peninsula in 1863.
Early Settlers on the Key Peninsula: The Dawn of the Present
Just nine years after the Treaty of Medicine Creek in 1854, Isaac Pennypacker Hawk of Olympia filed the first claim on the Key Peninsula. more
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Ralph Collins (right) with a driver for the Davidson Logging Co., 1940s.
Service Stations of the Key Peninsula
It was the age of the automobile — a machine, as it was called, that demanded frequent feeding and care. One by one auto repair shops and gas stations sprouted along county roads, family busi- … more
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The maze of Indian trails across the top tier of the peninsula on the original 1856-1857 General Land Office surveys (detail).
The Little-Known Story of Elgin-Clifton Road
The earliest maps of the Key Peninsula to show geographical features in the uplands and the interior, rather than charting the contour of the coastline, were survey plats created between 1853 and 1857 for the General Land Office. more
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Whatever History Has Forgotten, Seattle Put His People First
A year ago in September, I wrote about a few books in these pages that I thought our community might read and asked for suggestions for those many titles I certainly missed. One that came in … more
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