America 250:
Out of Many, One
We are asking the DuPont community to pick a museum item for a special display in 2026, for America's 250th anniversary. Voting is NOW open. Learn more about the items!
Item #1: Goldsmith's Call to Action
School District #7, later known as the DuPont-Ft. Lewis School District was formed in 1861 as the family population in the area grew. Over the years, they built a junior high and then a high school in 1963, which taught the children of both DuPont and Fort Lewis. With the creation of Laughbon High School came a debate over where the students of Ft. Lewis should be taught, DuPont or Clover Park, with the School Board not wanting students split between two districts.
Over the next 12 years, citizens of DuPont consistently made their voices heard, advocating for the students to remain within their district. They sent letters to the school board, held meetings, and circulated petitions to achieve accreditation. In 1970, as pressure mounted against the DuPont School District, resident Gordon Goldsmith sent a letter to the community as a call to action, urging the town to stay involved in the fight to save the high school. He urged the city to come together, to support DuPont resident May Munyan representing the town on the School Board, and to keep attending meetings and asking questions. Ultimately Laughbon High School lost federal funding in 1973, and two years later the DuPont School District #7 was consolidated with others into Steilacoom Historical School District #1.
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Item #2: Nisqually Berry Basket
The Nisqually basket was traditionally used to hold berries and other small items. Although the artist of this piece is unknown, it dates to the early 20th century. The oval basket was made using a coiling technique and accented with diamond-shaped “fishnet” designs. The oval form made it easier to carry and allowed for greater storage capacity than a round basket. Beargrass was used for the decorative accents, including the fishnet motifs and rim stitching, while red cedar root formed the base material, a hallmark of Nisqually basketry. Cedar root provided both flexibility and durability, and the basket’s flat base allowed it to sit securely. Women were most often the creators of these baskets, which were highly valued for their strength and beauty. Nisqually baskets have commanded high prices in the past and continue to be prized today.
From the time of our area's first settlement, over 5,000 years ago, to today, berries and berry picking have been a shared and continued tradition. Salmonberries, thimbleberries, and later blackberries spread like wildfire, a common enough sight in the landscape and a sweet treat for those who picked them. Nisqually, settlers, DuPont company workers, and DuPont residents: we all have enjoyed the bountiful berries on our trails and from our forests, come spring. We are all connected by this tradition.
Item #3: 19th Century Cannonball
A handwritten note in the box reads: “Cannon Ball? Found by Pastor Newhouse about 1945 in park behind the DuPont Church. It was then a public garden area. Given by his son Budd Newhouse June 1977.” Oral history has it that Pastor Newhouse found it in a tree in the area now behind the Presbyterian Church. The ball has a circumference of two inches, weighs 2.2 pounds, and was cast as a “solid ball” that was not explosive. It certainly fits the dimensions and characteristics of cannon balls used by the Hudson’s Bay Trading Company (HBC) in the 19th century. Balls of this type would have been fired from a British-made and commonly used Falconet cannon, as well as a swivel gun. Both types of weapons were part of the defenses of the second Fort Nisqually and were mounted in the Northwest and Southeast Bastions. Given the location where Pastor Newhouse found the ball, it perhaps was fired from the Southeast Bastion, then struck and embedded itself in a mature Garry Oak tree some 4,000 to 4,500 feet away. Garry Oaks, now a protected species, have been known to live up to 500 years.
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The ball reminds our 21st-century community members of the struggles that emerged between the Indigenous peoples of the Salish Sea and the arrival of Europeans engaged in trade, and later those making permanent settlement. The round shape serves as a visual guide for both looking backward at the past and forward into the future. The trade and commerce between the Salish peoples and with tribes to the east and south. Then came the HBC and expanded trade, employing people from around the world. Not long after HBC’s arrival, those from the United States arrived for both trade and land, leading to armed conflicts over resources. Today, the DuPont community includes a thriving hub of trade and commerce, a military base, and a diverse community of people from around the world, a larger mirror of the past. Nothing is known about why this one cannonball was fired. However, what we can learn from its past will help guide us in thinking about our collective stories and the way forward.
Item #4: WWI Letters Home
This collection of World War I letters was written and sent home to family and friends from DuPont residents who had been sent to serve in the war. Some of the letters are signed “somewhere in France,” perhaps indicating that the soldier is uncertain of his location or is not disclosing military positions. These letters span the period from November 1917 to May 1919. These letters were quite often collected and shared by the community at the DuPont Club House. The letters were rescued by Martin Blackburn when the DuPont Club House was razed and burned in 1961.
“War is hell and don’t let anybody tell you any different, for I know. I had plenty of experience in it to suit me. From May 1918 till Nov. 1918 at eleven o’clock a.m. we were on the front practically all the time and when we were not on one front, we were going to another. We marched for two days and nights and then had a rest, as we called it, till the officers got the location, and when we were ordered to go forward we didn’t stop for four days and nights. All we had to eat was what we had on our backs and that consisted of canned “bill” and hardtack, but luck would have it we ran across plenty of cabbage so we made a meal of raw cabbage, and went on rejoicing. “
Pvt. I/c C.C. Andrews
Germany, 1919
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“I am suffering with a wound in the leg, but in a couple of months I will be able to hobble on a couple of crutches, then it won’t be so bad after all. Well I got out of it lucky, nearly the whole company I was in is in the hospital or dead. There were about 15 left out of a company of 250. This is a hell of a war I am here to tell you.”
Paul Martin
Somewhere in France, 1918
Item #5: Brick from Boiler of SS Beaver
When the SS Beaver steamed into Hudson’s Bay Company’s Fort Nisqually on November 12, 1836, she made history as the first steamship on the west coast of North America. More than a vessel, she was a lifeline linking fur-trading outposts and forts from Puget Sound to Vancouver Island and Alaska. Swift and maneuverable, the Beaver could reach shallow waters that sailing ships could not, carrying traders, settlers, and supplies across the region.
Sworn testimony records that she was home-ported at Fort Nisqually from 1836 to 1842 and serviced here in 1841. During that refit, the fort’s clerk Edward Huggins inscribed this brick: “The Hudson Bay Company Steamer Beaver. This brick is from her boiler room, when being refinished at Fort Nisqually in 1841. Built in London, England, 1831. The first steamer to turn a wheel in the Pacific Ocean.” Once part of her fiery heart, this brick symbolizes innovation that reshaped the Pacific Northwest.
“The novelty of a steamship on the Columbia awakened a train of prospective reflections upon the probable changes which would take place in these remote regions, in a very few years.” —Reverend Samuel Parker, June 14, 1836, upon seeing the Beaver fire up her boilers for the first time at Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River (HistoryLink.org)
“A steam Vessel would afford us incalculable advantages over the Americans… we could look into every Creek and cove… a Steam Vessel would… bring the contest to a close very soon, by making us masters of the trade.” Gov. George Simpson’s letter to the HBC Committee, Aug. 10, 1832 (British Columbia Historical Quarterly, 1938).
Item #6: DuPont Company "Dynamite Train"
The DuPont Company operated in DuPont, Washington, from 1909 to 1975. Seventeen miles of narrow-gauge rail transported incoming supplies and outgoing products between the plant and a wharf on Puget Sound. The DuPont plant supplied explosives for projects such as the Grand Coulee Dam, the Panama Canal, and the Alaska Highway, and met military needs during World War I and World War II. In the first 50 years of operation, the DuPont plant produced over 1 billion pounds of explosives. Train transport was the safest method of moving such dangerous cargo.
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The train today is preserved by community effort and dedicated volunteers, serving as both an industrial artifact and a symbol of DuPont's contributions to national and global endeavors. Since 2008, the locomotive and train cars have been displayed behind the DuPont Historical Museum. We believe the DuPont narrow-gauge “Dynamite Train” is the only intact example in Washington state.