Time & Once more: A glance again at Portage Store, because it goes on sale

The Portage Store and its 1.7-acre site are now for sale, along with the adjacent 1.4-acre parcel to the west.

Together these two parcels include much of the salt marsh and the areas that were filled in to create the three roads that connect Vashon and Maury Islands.

The complex includes the original 1903 store that was moved to the north when the “new” two-story 1906 Portage Store replaced it; the Van Olinda House that sits to the west and is connected to the store, several garages and outbuildings, a filled area along Quartermaster Drive, and much of the original salt marsh that defined Portage as a place to drag canoes between Tramp Harbor and Quartermaster Harbor.

The historic building and property have both cultural and environmental importance.

Portage has long been an important and vital part of Vashon-Maury Island, providing the link between the two islands. The sxəbabš or Swift Water People’s name for Portage is StE’xygw1L — “where one pushes the canoe over.”

The sxəbabš, who first inhabited Vashon-Maury Island, used Portage as a major gathering and hunting place, and shared hunting rights at the site with the Nisqually Tribe in a traditional resource-sharing arrangement.

The bird netting poles at Portage used to hunt waterfowl, were still visible as late as 1905.

Portage was also the location of a major sxəbabš burial site. Canoe burials in the large madrone grove to the south of the road, connecting Tramp Harbor and Quartermaster Harbor, were still present in the 1910s. The madrone grove has now been largely eliminated, and nothing remains of the canoe burials except the sacred spirit of the place.

Portage was mapped twice, first by George Vancouver in 1792, who saw it as a connecting isthmus and named the entire island “Vashon’s Island” and half a century later by Charles Wilkes of the American Exploring Expedition, who saw it as a tidal flat and thus two islands, naming Maury as a separate island after Lt. William Maury, the expedition’s navigator.

Wilkes provided this description of Portage when he wrote in his journal: “On the east end of Vashon’s Island, and near to it, is Maury’s Island. It is 4 miles in length by 1 mile wide; trends northeast and southeast. Between it and Vashon’s Island is Quartermaster’s Harbor which is safe, and of moderate depth. A small neck of land extends from the upper part of Vashon’s Island, where it forms a snug cove. At extremely low water, Maury’s and Vashon’s Islands are joined by a sandbar.”

After American settlement of Vashon, Portage became the center of a vibrant community with the Portage Store, a Ford automobile dealership (the first auto dealership on the Island), a post office, a hotel, an Episcopal Church, and the first automobile ferry connecting Vashon to Des Moines on the mainland — now the sight of Tramp Harbor dock.

To make this all possible, first, a causeway was constructed on the Quartermaster Harbor side, in 1896, by a crew sent from the Dockton Drydock Company to help create a water-level road to Dockton. A causeway and bridge were developed on the Tramp Harbor side before 1900.

In 1914, King County removed the bridge, filled the marsh, constructed a bulkhead, and built a water-level road to Ellisport to prepare for the opening of the Portage-Des Moines ferry in 1916.

The dream of opening Portage by cutting a canal was first announced in 1889 when islanders “proposed to cut a steamboat channel between Vashon and Maury islands in order to shorten the route between Seattle and Tacoma.”

The idea was revived in 1911 with U.S. Senator Lile assuring work was progressing on the plan at an estimated cost of $27,000, but no federal funding materialized, and the idea died.

The Corps of Engineers recommended a canal in 1926, but again there was no funding.

In 1960, the final effort to cut a canal at Portage was supported by the Chamber of Commerce, but the Corps of Engineers could only fund the survey, not the estimated $400,000 construction cost.

The dream remains alive for some islanders who want to open the salt marsh at Portage to help reduce pollution in Quartermaster Harbor and to benefit small boat owners traveling between Tacoma and Seattle.

In 1903, C.F. Van Olinda built the first store at Portage and later that year opened the Portage Post Office as its first postmaster. The store offered the first Rural Free Delivery (RFD) on the island, beginning in 1905, and remained a post office until July 12, 1968, when it was decommissioned.

Van Olinda built the “new” two-story Portage Store in 1906 and moved the original store to the north, where it still stands, but in dilapidated condition.

After Van Olinda sold the buildings, the store remained in operation well into the first years of the 21st century. Through the nineteen-teens the store went through several different owners, ultimately becoming Lavender’s Store in the 1930s, and then in the late 1960s, Jim and Elspeth Smith operated the Portage Store, until it closed in 2005.

A notable year for Portage and the Portage Store was 1976 when the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti stayed at the store and wrote his poem, “Clamshell Alliance.”

Ferlinghetti was in Seattle to do a reading at the University Friends Center in the U District and stayed a few days with his friend Jakk Corsaw at Portage. Clearly, Ferlinghetti would have met and had long conversations with Jakk’s two great friends — Jim Smith, owner of the Portage Store, and Billy Sandiford, who founded and performed in the much beloved Billy Sandiford Day Parade.

“Clamshell Alliance” was first published in Ferlinghetti’s 1979 collection, “Landscapes of Living and Dying,” and later in his 1988 “Wild Dreams of a New Beginning.”

Earlier that year, the Canadian rock band Rush stayed in the original store building and worked on finalizing their studio album, “All the Worlds a Stage.” In the liner notes for the album, Rush thanked “Peter Talbot and the Vashon Islanders … We thank you for your friendship and support and wish you success in all your aspirations.”

There is a lot of interest in the building and the adjacent parcel, which are listed at $850,000 for the store and $250,000 for the parcel.

There are also several issues about the site and the buildings that a potential buyer will need to consider.

The buildings are more than 100 years old, and while the two-story store and connected house seem stable, the 1903 original store that was moved to the north is leaning significantly out of plumb. Much of the parcel to the west was filled with debris put there in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when Vashon’s roads began to be paved for the first time.

The salt marsh is important habitat, and questions about how best to preserve it will need to be addressed.

There is also the significance of the site to the sxəbabš Native People of Vashon and to the Puyallup Tribe since the site was once a burial ground and, according to both Indigenous and settler accounts, also the site of a possible battle between South Sound Native People and raiders from Northern Tribes.

Local historian Brian Brenno has written about the site and Helen Puz’s description of her father helping C. F. Van Olinda dig the basement for the “new” Portage Store, where, according to Puz, human remains were unearthed.

In 1998, King County Department of Natural Resources developed an extensive “Scoping Document for Improvements at Portage, Vashon Island” that considered nine options for Portage that ranged from improving the existing culvert to constructing bridges to restoring the salt marsh, to developing a canal between Quartermaster Harbor and Tramp Harbor.

Any new owner of the site will need to consider all these issues as they attempt to preserve and develop this important historic piece of Vashon’s history.

Portage and the Portage Store are both important parts of Vashon’s past. Knowing the history of the area and of the buildings helps us to understand how much Vashon has changed.

Large salt marshes like Portage, Point Robinson, and KVI Beach were once common on the island. Now only KVI remains as the last remaining large salt mash in central Puget Sound.

Community stores, like the Portage Store, were centers of the many waterfront communities that ringed the Island before roads, automobiles, and consolidation unified the island into what it is today.

Now, only the Burton Store remains.

What the future holds for Portage and the Portage Store is uncertain. Hopefully, whatever happens, we always remember the distinctive place this location holds in the history of Vashon-Maury Island.

Bruce Haulman is an island historian. Terry Donnelly is an island photographer.