Bringing Dockton's History into the 21st Century

Anita Halstead and friends plan to bring Dockton’s history into the 21st century with 10 signs, she told Vashon Kiwanis Oct. 21, 2008.

Ten interpretive signs and an “entering Dockton” kind of edifice, a bell tower, are to be placed around the village. Each sign celebrates a significant portion of village history. Examples: the first dry dock on Puget Sound and a l908 net shed, the last original around the Sound, she said.

The bell, now preserved in the St. John Vianney basement, was used to bring workers to the shipyards when needed, she said.

The Dockton Water Association building was Dockton’s first school, built in 1903, she told Kiwanians. There’s a sign planned for the codfish dock, too.

Halstead, a “100 percent” Croatian, and her husband, of Norwegian extraction, grew interested in Dockton history when they discovered their 1908 retirement home in Dockton was built by Croatians and Norwegians. Croatians built ships and houses and a lot of ther things in the region about that time.

The sign project developed from meetings of Docktoners who discussed what could and should be done. The Vashon Heritage Association, a 501 C 3 institution, is handling grants and donations.

Text and pictures on the signs she showed Kiwanis eventually are going into a brochure.

She expects children will find the signs interesting. Kiwanis’ focus is children’s well being. Children can learn the proud history of the village and look around to see how things changed. Halstead was education director for the Frye Art Museum in Seattle.

John Martinolich, dry dock owner, and other Croatians, came to America to find jobs, she explained. Shipp repair and building was a major industry at Dockton before roads linked many communities around the Sound. Sailing ships took logs and lumber to Pacicfic ports from here and other Sound ports.

New coal mines near Roslyn was what attracted her parents.

Signs are paid for from the hotel-motel bed tax King County levies to serve visitors. Islander Sandra Noel designed the signs.