Porter is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

and

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...

(CDP) in Grays Harbor County,

Washington Washington most commonly refers to: * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States * Washington (state), a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A ...

, United States. The population was 204 at the 2020 census, slightly down from 207 at the 2010 census. Prior to 2010 it was part of the Malone-Porter CDP;

Malone Malone () is an Irish surname. From the Irish "''Mael Eóin''", the name means a servant or a disciple of Saint John. People * Gilla Críst Ua Máel Eóin (died 1127), historian and Abbot of Clonmacnoise, Ó Maoil Eoin * Adrian Malone (1937 ...

and Porter are now separate CDPs. They are located just off

U.S. Route 12 U.S. Route 12 or U.S. Highway 12 (US 12) is an east–west United States Numbered Highway, running from Aberdeen, Washington, to Detroit, Michigan, for almost . The highway has mostly been superseded by Interstate 90 (I-90 ...

, southeast of Elma and northwest of Oakville, and along a shortline that is part of the

Puget Sound and Pacific Railroad The Puget Sound and Pacific Railroad is a Class iii railroad, Class III Shortline railroad, shortline railroad that operates 158 miles of track serving the Kitsap Peninsula, Grays Harbor County, Washington, Grays Harbor County and Centralia, Was ...

History

Porter was named after Fairchild Porter, who settled in the area around 1860. The Sharon

Grange Grange may refer to: Buildings * Grange House, Scotland, built in 1564, and demolished in 1906 * Grange Estate, Pennsylvania, built in 1682 * The Grange (Toronto), Toronto, Ontario, built in 1817 * Monastic grange, a farming estate belonging to ...

, located in Oakville, began in the Porter community as the Porter Grange No. 800 in 1923. Much of Porter was destroyed by fire on January 31, 1924. Porter Saloon was re-built later that same year. When it re-opened in 1933 following the repeal of

Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic b ...

, it was one of the first establishments to receive a liquor license in the state of Washington.

Geography

Porter is located in southeastern Grays Harbor County, east of the Chehalis River valley near the mouth of Porter Creek. The CDP extends northeast up the Porter Creek valley and east to the first ridgecrest of the local Black Hills. It is bordered to the northwest by the

CDP and to the west by

, which leads west to

Aberdeen Aberdeen ( ; ; ) is a port city in North East Scotland, and is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, third most populous Cities of Scotland, Scottish city. Historically, Aberdeen was within the historic county of Aberdeensh ...

and southeast to Grand Mound and

Interstate 5 Interstate 5 (I-5) is the main north–south Interstate Highway System, Interstate Highway on the West Coast of the United States, running largely parallel to the Pacific coast of the contiguous U.S. from Mexico to Canada. It travels thro ...

. According to the

United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...

, the Porter CDP has a total area of , all of it land.

References

{{authority control Census-designated places in Grays Harbor County, Washington Census-designated places in Washington (state)