By Calder Stenn, Associate Editor
From April 7 to Sept. 24, the Vashon-Maury Island Heritage Museum will feature a free, exclusive exhibit about one of Vashon Island’s oldest communities on its east side: Ellisport. The exhibit will focus mainly on topics such as the Chautauqua program, the KVI radio tower and businesses and industries that developed in Ellisport. It will be presented through text, photographs, artifacts, video image and more.
Chautauqua, an educational and cultural movement that originated in New York, split off into various programs across the country. These programs became concentrated mostly in rural areas of America and were called independent Chautauquas. The exhibit will cover the independent Chautauqua in Ellisport that started in 1888 and represented the permanent location for the Puget Sound Chautauqua Assembly.
“The area was platted as town roads, lots and public spaces,” island historian Bruce Haulman said. “There was an arena that seated 1,500 people, a three-story administration building, a hotel and lots of cabins and platform tents where people could stay.”
In addition to an exhibit on the origins of the Chautauqua, there will be an interactive outdoors tour.
“The community [on Ellisport] got so excited about the exhibit that they decided to put on an actual Chautauqua assembly,” Carla Okigwe, the curator of the exhibit, said.
The interactive tour will take place during this summer on July 9, and will occur in the neighborhood where the original assembly was held.
Another prominent piece of the exhibit will be on KVI beach and its radio tower. The exhibit will explore the origins of KVI, the reasoning behind it being privately owned, and the story behind its radio tower.
“[Even though the beach is privately owned], there is kind of an oral understanding … that the community can have access to the beach as it [was] under the Chautauqua days,” Okigwe said.
The exhibit about the KVI radio tower — which was built in the 1930s — will discuss how it became the first radio tower of many to be built on the island and achieved locational significance.
“Vashon was centrally located in the Puget Sound Basin, so [it was] an ideal location for radio stations who wanted their signal to reach as many people as possible,” Haulman said.
Arguably one of the most fascinating parts of the exhibit will be its extensive history on the commercial and industrial development of Ellisport.
“Ellisport had three different steamer docks, an oil dock for Beall Greenhouses, a sawmill, greenhouses, several stores, a gas station, the Grand Knights Templar Lodge, a church and several hotels,” Haulman said.
Also included in the exhibit will be a description of how Ellisport got the first car dock on the island, which is now the King County fishing pier.
“[The] first car ferry to Vashon ran from Portage (near the Fishing Pier) to Des Moines,” Haulman said. “The ferry built for that run was named the Vashon Island. The road along the water from Portage to Ellisport was built to get cars to the ferry dock. Before that there was no water level road, [so] you had to go up over the hill.”
Ultimately, the Ellisport exhibit will offer interesting insights into one of Vashon’s most treasured communities.
“Ellisport’s history is significant because it is a reflection of the history of all of Vashon — it was an important tourist destination as Chautauqua,” Haulman said, “and it ultimately became a small residential community as Vashon became more of a bedroom community for Seattle and Tacoma.”