Since the government land allotted for school construction was largely underwater, and the part that was dry was hard to get to, after a first year in a vacant house by Oro Bay, islanders chose their own site. In , Christian Christensen donated 10 acres near the center of the island. The school was named Wide Awake Hollow. In , the school year was extended to six months in three month segments with a break for haying season in the middle.
The school age population grew through the early s, and then began to dwindle with narrowing job prospects on the island. By , there were only full-time residents on the island, fewer than in , and the student population was back down to seven. The school was closed, and for the next 32 years, grade school children commuted by boat to McNeil.
Anderson Island Elementary School reopened in a new building in with 12 students and in was up to Middle and high school students continued to travel to Steilacoom for their education, as they had since early days. The original building, now a fitness center, remains, thanks to the Anderson Island Park and Recreation District, which was formed to preserve it. It is the oldest surviving one-room schoolhouse in Pierce County. There have never been many paycheck jobs on Anderson Island.
Early residents made their living primarily from the land and the sea, shifting to the next opportunity when the market changed or the resource was used up. Business-minded islanders tried a number of enterprises over the decades, few of which lasted long. The island was too small to be a stand-alone commercial community, and too isolated to make exporting financially feasible after the timber ran out.
There was no store on the island until , so residents shopped on board steamboats that churned a route through the Sound. Most early trade was by barter -- island produce in return for dry goods and hardware.
For trips to the mainland for bigger purchases and other errands, islanders could take a steamboat for 50 cents or row themselves the three-plus miles over and back. Clay deposits are common around Puget Sound, and many locations hosted brickyards. The Panic of dealt it a death blow, though it hung on for a few years more. The equipment was hauled away, but some of the workers remained and became islanders. The remains of the brickyard are part of the park at Jacob's Point, and are of archeological interest, with field work through the Evergreen State College tentatively scheduled for Albert McCay was the first resident to take up commercial shrimping, needing an income beyond farming to support his large family.
He started with a skiff, a trawl and a winch soon after his arrival in By he had teamed up with Frank Brown to operate a small steamer, dragging the sea bottom for shrimp, cooking them on board with water heated by piped steam from the ship's engine, and wholesaling them around Puget Sound.
At the height of the season in the early s, a skilled and lucky shrimper might bring in a ton a day, good money even at 4. That bounty was unsustainable, though, and overfishing depleted the beds and ended the local industry by the s.
In the s, much uncut timber remaining on the island burned. That opened ground led to masses of wild huckleberries, small and time consuming to pick but intensely flavored. They became a new source of cash, sold to a packing house at Longbranch, across Drayton Passage on the Key Peninsula. The big harvests lasted until the understory vegetation regrew and shaded out the bushes, diminishing production.
Huckleberry and other foliage remained a "crop" of sorts, attracting brush pickers who supply the florist trade with sturdy greenery. But that requires forested land, which diminishes as housing multiplies. Ferry service began April 1, , when the Elk , a recycled fish carrier, began its run from Longbranch to Steilacoom with a stop at Anderson.
Two years later it was replaced by the larger City of Steilacoom. After that came the Tahoma , built in , and the Islander , purchased in The Christine Anderson took over the route in and is in service as of , joined by its twin, the Steilacoom 2. In addition to increased ferry capacity, the arrival of community electricity on the island, started with 44 houses connected by submersible cable in , led to a population spike.
From residents in , the count grew to around in and over a thousand by Most of the newcomers settled in the real estate development called the Riviera Community Club, which comprises around homes built on more than lots, mostly inland, centered around Lakes Josephine and Florence. It includes a golf course, restaurant, marina, and park land.
By , about 70 percent of the island's population lives in the development. Pierce County Fire District 27, established on the island in , was one response to population growth. Like the first church, its creation was a community project. Fire fighting had previously been an informal system where neighbors were alerted by one long ring on the community phone line.
And volunteers pooled their cash to buy a decrepit ambulance for medical calls. Morris Krepky , Mary Jane Reynolds d.
By they had funded a dedicated building with equipment and a crew of volunteer firefighters and EMTS. Since then the district has added a fire boat for marine emergencies and transport. Ever larger-capacity ferries and more frequent runs have driven a variety of changes in island life. The Tahoma held nine cars and made five runs a day. As of the car Christine Anderson and Steilacoom 2 run a combined 14 times a day with five more weekend crossings added in the summer.
This steadily increasing auto capacity and number of trips, along with more opportunities for working remotely, has allowed the island to become a bedroom community, to the dismay of many longer-established residents.
Lot sizes in the Riveria Community Club are smaller than on the rest of the island, allowing for more density and more pressure on the aquifer that supplies Anderson Island's water. Some wells have experienced saltwater intrusion, and reserve osmosis desalinization systems are now sold on the island. All information provided is deemed reliable but is not guaranteed and should be independently verified.
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We will respond to you as soon as we are able. Note that all information fields are required. Thanks, and text to you soon! Your Question:. With no connecting bridge, the island is reached only by Pierce County Ferry from Steilacoom or by private boat. The island has a land mass of about 8 square miles, and a permanent population which has hovered around in recent years.
Its many vacation homes make it a popular destination year-round, but especially in summer. The island boasts of two large lakes and provides habitat for deer, raccoons, coyotes, and other wildlife besides a healthy population of birds, frogs and bees.
Heedless of the intense rivalry that had sprung up between Britain and the U. When the Americans sailed away a few months later, their grateful commander bestowed the names of his new-found friends on the neighboring islands, including Anderson, McNeil and Ketron Islands. Attempts to settle Anderson Island in the 's and 50's proved futile, and it was not until the early 's that the maritime-savvy Scandinavian immigrants took the first steps toward permanent residency there. Initially, they found a market for the giant old-growth timber that covered their claims by providing fuel for the wood-fired steamers that plied the Sound in the late 19 th century.
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