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Unincorporated community in Washington, US

Port Gamble is an unincorporated community on the northwestern shore of the Kitsap Peninsula in Kitsap County, Washington, United States. It is also a small, eponymous bay, along which the community lies, near the entrance to Hood Canal. The unincorporated communities of Port Gamble and Little Boston, part of Kitsap County, lie on the west and the east side, respectively, of the mouth of this bay. The Port Gamble Historic District, a U. S. National Historic Landmark, covers one of the nation's best preserved western lumber towns. The community of Port Gamble has a wide range of shops from antiques to a tea shop to an old fashioned general store. It is a popular tourist destination, due to its location near Bremerton, Port Townsend, Bainbridge Island, and Seattle. Port Gamble is home to the grave of Gustave Englebrecht, the first U. S. Navy sailor to die in the Pacific.

Gamble Bay was named by the Wilkes Expedition in 1841. The source of the name is unclear. Wilkes often named places after historical figures, and speculation centers on Lt. Col. John M. Gamble, an illustrious figure in the War of 1812; or U. S. Navy Lt. Robert Gamble, an officer aboard the frigate President wounded in an exchange with But the name may have had a more prosaic origin. Wilkes's published account of the expedition omits mention of either Gamble but does say that a lieutenant's survey party "[o]n entering [Hood's] canal [at what would become Gamble Bay] camped near some Suquamish Indians who had received as visitors a party of fifty Clalams, by appointment to gamble for blankets: they continued their games throughout the night." The community, originally known as "Teekalet" and later renamed "Port Gamble" for the bay which gave it access to ocean commerce, was founded as a company town by Josiah Keller, William Talbot, and Andrew Pope's Puget Mill Company in 1853. In 1856, Massachusetts was sent from Seattle to Port Gamble on the Puget Sound, where indigenous raiding parties from British and Russian territories had been enslaving local Native Americans. When the warriors refused to hand over those among them who had attacked the Puget Sound Native American communities, Massachusetts landed a shore party and a battle ensued in which 26 natives and 1 sailor were killed. In the aftermath of this, Colonel Isaac Ebey, the first white settler on Whidbey Island, was shot and beheaded on August 11, 1857, by a Haida raiding party in revenge for the killing of a native chief during similar raids the year before. British authorities demurred on pursuing or attacking the northern tribes as they passed northward through British waters off Victoria, and Ebey's killers were never caught. The first school in the county went up in 1859, and the community took its present name in 1868. In 1966, the town of Port Gamble was designated a National Historic Landmark District. In 1985, Pope & Talbot, the successor company to Puget Mill, split into Pope & Talbot and Pope Resources, the latter of which took over the site and the sawmill. In 1995, the mill shut down after 142 years, ending the longest span of operation of any sawmill in the country.

In 1849, William Talbot and Andrew Pope arrived in San Francisco from East Machias, Maine, in hope of taking part in its shipping and lumber industry, for the shipping of lumber to the rapidly growing Western United States was becoming a very lucrative business. Pope and Talbot quickly realized that the lumber shipments from New England were not enough to meet the growing demand for building materials in the West. After hearing about the dense forests in the Oregon Territory, Talbot and Pope, along with partners Josiah Keller and Charles Foster, formed the Puget Mill Company to harvest the much needed lumber for the expanding West. In the summer of 1853, Talbot, after searching the Puget Sound area for the best possible site for a mill, spotted a sand spit at the mouth of Gamble Bay as an excellent location, for it provided a location near the abundant trees of the Oregon Territory and a port for shipping the cut lumber to California. The founders of the mill of Port Gamble, however, were not the first to occupy Gamble Bay. The S'Klallams, or Nux Sklai Yem, had been living in the Puget Sound region since 2400 B. C. Legally, land was not available for non Native settlement until March 8, 1859, when Congress ratified the Treaty of Point No Point, which was signed January 26, 1855, by representatives of the United States and the Chemakum, S'Klallam and Skokomish nations. But by that time, the Port Gamble Band of S'Klallam Indians had moved across the bay to Point Julia. With the depletion of forestland in other states, more and more companies turned to Washington to supply the growing need for timber. By 1906 there were over 900 lumber mills of various sizes in Washington alone. The Puget Mill Company, now known as Pope & Talbot, Inc., soon followed suit, forming the Hood Canal Tree Farm in 1946 and having in it by 1953. During the turn of the century, the Puget Mill Company and the Pope and Talbot Lumber Company shipped their lumber from Port Gamble across the Atlantic Ocean to be used in the British, French and Russian navies for their sparring around the world. Captain Keller took hold of the shipment plans for the Pope and Talbot Lumber Company and created routes along the Pacific Coast to help supply the large demands of the California Gold Rush. This transportation of lumber opened the door for shipments to China and Southeast Asia. Because Talbot and Pope hailed from the state of Maine, their connections to the East Coast and constant travels back to their hometown, many of the ports along South America and the West Indies experienced contact from the Port Gamble shipments. A little over a year earlier in May 1924, William Talbot had already reached his own decision regarding the future of the Port Gamble mill. In a letter to Northwest Operations Manager, E. G. Ames, Talbot mentioned that it was "suicidal to continue operating the Port Gamble Mill." A general store still stands in the town, renovated to its 1916 form and now a tourist attraction. The town has an Old Mills Days festival that keeps alive the spirit of the mill. Port Gamble gives out pamphlets for a walking tour to the historic buildings. The preservation of the town of Port Gamble began in the mid 1960s, when Pope & Talbot rebuilt and restored thirty houses and buildings, located utilities underground, and installed gas street lamps. In 1966, Port Gamble was declared a National Historic Landmark.

Port Gamble was the setting of and filming location for the 2010 film ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction. Author Gregg Olsen made Port Gamble the setting for his "Empty Coffin" series of books, which include Betrayal and Envy.