It all started at DuPont
Cradle of Euro-American civilization in Washington

Post Ice-Age For thousands of years, the DuPont area plains and salmon-rich Sequalitchew Creek provided food and home for the Sequalitchew-Nisqually Indians who lived at the mouth of the creek. Carbon dating of shells at a local midden site shows human life thriving here 5,700 years ago.

1792 DuPont land was first seen by outsiders when British Captain George Vancouver and his party of explorers cam down into the sound.

1832 The area to become Fort Nisqually was sited by Hudson’s Bay Company’s chief trader, Archibald McDonald. In cooperation with the Indians, his expedition built a storehouse for blankets, seeds and potatoes at the mouth of Sequalitchew Creek.

1833 First Fort Nisqually. The British owned Husdon’s Bay Company established its first fur trading post in Puget Sound. Farming enterprises were expanded in 1838 and a subsidiary called The Puget Sound Agricultural Company. A diverse workforce of Native, Hawaiians, British, Scottish, French Canadians and Americans lived and traded in relative peace.

1837 The SS Beaver. The first steamship in Puget Sound was a sturdy side-wheeler owned by the Hudson’s Bay Company and commanded by Captain William McNeil. It arrived to serve Fort Nisqually.

1839 Nisqually Methodist Episcopal Mission was established, bringing the first U.S. citizens into the Puget Sound region.

1841 Wilkes U.S. Exploring Expedition. The second group of Americans arrived. Led by Lt. Charles Wilkes, they set up an observatory on the bluff to survey, map and chart the waters of Puget Sound. They joined the Americans at the mission to hold the first 4th of July celebration west of the Missouri River.

1843 Second Fort Nisqually. Business became mainly agricultural, and the fort was relocated on a flat-plains area near the banks of Sequalitchew Creek.

1852 Nisqually School built. In 1860 Pierce County School District #7, incorporating DuPont and Fort Lewis, was formed.

1869 The U.S. government purchased the Fort site and auctioned it to American settlers.

1904 First joint Army-National Guard training exercises on west coast were held. The massive encampment near Sequalitchew Creek included the “Buffalo Soldiers” of the 9th Calvary.

1906 E.I. duPont deNemours Company purchased nearly five square miles of the land for the manufacture of black powder and high explosives. Tar-paper shacks housed the construction crew.

1909 Operations at the plant began, as did construction of permanent homes for employees. The Company Town, which had its own school district, newspaper and post office by 1909 grew to 100 houses, a church, school, butcher shop, hotel and club house.

1910 DuPont Company constructed a railroad and wharf for shipping dynamite. The area is a natural deep-water port.

1934 Fort Nisqually reconstructed at Pt. Defiance Park by the Young Men’s business Club of Tacoma. The factor’s house and the granary, the oldest building in the state, were moved and the rest of the fort rebuilt. Black locust trees, raised from seed brought from England, are all that remain on the original site. Pacific Lutheran University conducted an archeological dig in 1987. The site was fenced and given to the National Archeological Conservancy in 1993.

1951 DuPont was officially incorporated as a city with approximately 600 residents (First incorporation, 1912). The sturdy company homes were sold to employees.

1976 Weyerhaeuser Company purchased all 3,200 acres of DuPont Company property. In 1989 the planned community legacy was continued with construction of “Northwest Landing”, a residential, commercial and industrial development.

1987 The company town area, known as “The Village” was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

“What single Puget Sound location outshines the historical significance of all others? The answer would have to be DuPont” Columbia Magazine, State Historical Society

* Home of the first European settlement in Puget Sound * First named location in the Oregon Territory * First steamboat on the Northwest Coast * First American overland road in the Pacific Northwest Territory * First American settlement in Washington with first school teacher (Chloe Clark), first wedding of US citizens and first birth of American child * First industrial plant in the Northwest.