County Past
Home › Washington › Grays Harbor County

Grays Harbor County, Washington

Historic newspapers, landmarks, and county history layers for genealogists and local historians.

—newspaper titles
—digitized titles
22historic places
—earliest paper
1854formed
75,636pop. 2020
10cemeteries
—CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The National Register of Historic Places includes 22 listed properties in the county, first listed in 1973. Most listings are in or near Hoquiam, Aberdeen, Cosmopolis.

Summary generated automatically from the source data on this page.

Newspapers

Library of Congress

Newspaper directory data for Washington is not yet loaded on this site. Browse Grays Harbor titles at the Library of Congress.

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

18 of 22 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

22 listed properties
PropertyCityTypeListed
American Veterans Building-HoquiamHoquiamBuilding2011
Carnegie LibraryHoquiamBuilding1982
Cooney, Neil, MansionCosmopolisBuilding1983
Grays Harbor Light StationWestportBuilding1977
Hodgdon, Judge Charles W., HouseHoquiamBuilding2005
Hoquiam Olympic StadiumHoquiamBuilding2006
Hoquiam River BridgeHoquiamStructure1982
Hoquiam's CastleHoquiamBuilding1973
Hotel MorckAberdeenBuilding2016
Hulbert, Edward & Laura, HouseAberdeenBuilding2018
Kestner HomesteadPort AngelesDistrict2007
Lake Quinault LodgeLake QuinaultBuilding1998
Lytle, Joseph, HomeHoquiamBuilding1990
Masonic Temple-HoquiamHoquiamBuilding2007
McCleary Hotel, OldMcClearyBuilding1996
McTaggert, Lachlin, HouseHoquiamBuilding1985
Mickelson, Ole, CabinQuinaultBuilding1993
Polson, F. Arnold, House and Polson, Alex, GroundsHoquiamBuilding1979
SIERRA (motor ship)AberdeenStructure1978
Seventh Street TheaterHoquiamBuilding1987
US Post Office-Hoquiam MainHoquiamBuilding1991
US Post Office-Montesano MainMontesanoBuilding1991

Source: National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Property links open NRHP nomination files at the National Archives.

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Grays Harbor was formed in 1854 (1854-04-14) from Lewis, Thurston.

CHEHALIS (now GRAYS HARBOR) created by Washington Territory from LEWIS and THURSTON.

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

Grays Harbor County population from 1860 to 2020 (Census historical series).

76k38k2851860188019201940196020002020
1860188019001920194019501960198020002020
28592115,12444,74553,16653,64454,46566,31467,19475,636

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau historical county population (Forstall 1790–1990) and public-domain / CC0 county population series through 2020.

Cemeteries & historical places

USGS GNIS

10 cemeteries and 0 historical populated places (ghost towns / former settlements) recorded in USGS GNIS for this county.

Cemeteries — 10 of 10 listed
NameLatLon
Elma Catholic Cemetery47.00405-123.45644
Fern Hill Cemetery46.9948-123.79735
Forest Hill Cemetery46.95117-123.77903
Masonic Cemetery47.00235-123.43517
Mc Cleary Pythian Cemetery47.05602-123.27632
Oakville Pioneer Cemetery46.83233-123.22299
Oddfellow Cemetery47.01057-123.38235
Sharon Cemetery46.92849-123.3237
Sunset Memorial Park Cemetery46.9894-123.89164
Wynooche Cemetery46.9786-123.6235

Source: USGS Geographic Names Information System (public domain). Cemeteries from the 2021 NationalFile archive; historical places from GNIS HistoricalFeatures topical extract.

Historical markers

HMdb link

Marker text and photos from the Historical Marker Database (HMdb) are not embedded here. HMdb allows non-commercial reuse with attribution, but commercial/compensated use needs written permission; this is a commercial site, so we only link out.

Search HMdb for Grays Harbor County, Washington

Terms: hmdb.org/copyright.asp. Linking is encouraged by HMdb.