Pysht is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

located on the

Olympic Peninsula The Olympic Peninsula is a large arm of land in western Washington that lies across Puget Sound from Seattle, and contains Olympic National Park. It is bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean, the north by the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the ...

Clallam County, Washington Clallam County is a County (United States), county in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 77,155, with an estimated population of 78,209 in 2021. The county seat ...

, United States and is situated near the mouth the

Pysht River The Pysht River ( ) is a stream in the U.S. state of Washington. It originates near Ellis Mountain in the northern Olympic Mountains on the Olympic Peninsula and flows generally north, emptying into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The Pysht and nearby ...

History

The area was originally home to the

Klallam Klallam (also Clallam, although the spelling with "K" is preferred in all four modern Klallam communities) refers to four related indigenous Native American/First Nations communities from the Pacific Northwest of North America. The Klallam cult ...

village of Pysht, while European Americans arrived in the 1860s. Michigan-based Merrill and Ring was established in 1886 purchased several homesteads in the Pysht Valley to log the area, later setting up logging camps and a

company town A company town is a place where practically all stores and housing are owned by the one company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schools, markets and re ...

at Pysht. At its height, it housed 500 people and included a post office, company store, schoolhouse, hospital, electric plant, movie hall, and a port. A county road (now State Route 112) was completed in 1920. The original Klallam village was demolished in the 1920s by loggers seeking to build a lumber mill while its residents were working in other areas.Archived a
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Geography

The community lies on the

Strait of Juan de Fuca The Strait of Juan de Fuca (officially named Juan de Fuca Strait in Canada) is a body of water about long that is the Salish Sea's outlet to the Pacific Ocean. The international boundary between Canada and the United States runs down the centre ...

near the mouth of the Pysht River, which flows southwest to northeast. The community is accessible via State Rout 112. Directly east of the community is

Pillar Point County Park A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member. ...

References

Crabbing communities Unincorporated communities in Washington (state) Unincorporated communities in Clallam County, Washington {{ClallamCountyWA-geo-stub