Bremerton, Washington

Bremerton, Washington is a city that started humbly as a Navy shipyard. It grew out of an attempt to make something profitable and lovely out of a simple need. As the United States has produced and serviced its naval fleet, Bremerton has provided for the needs of the sailors and the service people who help them relax and unwind after the drudgery of sea life. Bremerton is a vacation destination not devoted to the traditional tourist serving mindset.

Bremerton has focused on building lovely community areas, as well as having festivals that celebrate its heritage. When the city wanted to make it easier to leave the ferry depot, it dug a tunnel underneath the downtown area and placed sculptures and well-tended foliage above. This is more than just a place to come in between tours of duty. Bremerton is a great little city, both for finding steady work and for having a good time during the off hours of the day.

Whether you just like to take long walks along the ocean or take a shopping trip, Bremerton is a great place to be.

Welcome to the city of Bremerton, where you will be able to make just about anything happen. The city also has a bustling nightlife, various places to eat, places to see and can also offer you a great shopping experience. Many businesses in the city also thrive.

Bremerton History

Bremerton, Washington originally began with a dream to profit from the Navy's extensive use of laborers. William Bremer had already come from Germany to Seattle and made a reasonable fortune by the time he noticed a feasibility study by the Navy in 1891 that declared Point Turner to be an excellent place for a Pacific Northwest shipyard. Since every worker needs to go shopping and grab a bite to eat from time to time, it made perfect sense to Bremer that even if he bought up a bunch of land for $200 per acre and sold some of it to the Navy for $50 an acre, he could still make a mountain of profit over time.

In 1901, Bremerton officially became a city. Alvyn Croxton was the first mayor of the city, and the first significant hurdle was overcoming the local reputation for crime and the unsavory nature of the waterfront area. Croxton actually had to forcibly close down all of the saloons in the area during 1904 in order to get the Navy to use the shipyard. Naturally, Saloons began to come back into business within two years of their shuttering. 1908 saw another upgrade to the area's social class, as a library and the area's first high school added some education to the opportunities locals enjoyed.

Of course, education isn't the only thing that makes a city successful. Between World War I and the annexation of several cities in the area, Bremerton began to grow by leaps and bounds. The 1910 US Census reported the population to be less than 3,000 people, but in 1930 the population was pushing toward 11,000. Having swallowed up Manette and Charleston, two local towns formerly neighboring Bremerton, the city had nearly quadrupled itself in less than a generation.

As the 20th century drew onward, problems began to unfold. After World War II flooded the city with 80,000 people due to the extreme workloads the shipyard required, in 1950 the population settled back to about 27,000 people. Around that time, in 1946, Olympic College first opened for classes. Its first commencement occurred in 1948, granting Harry Truman the college's first honorary degree.

As the relatively calm 50s and 60s flowed into the 70s, urban blight began to settle into the city. William Bremer's son Edward had inherited most of his father's properties, but had allowed things to go awry. When he died, Olympic College inherited and all but abandoned the properties. However, in the 1990s the city council finally decided to move on ideas to renovate and beautify areas of downtown to attract more people. In addition to this, condos were built in the waterfront area to attract people to the newly redone areas.

About Bremerton, Washington

Bremerton began as the surroundings of a Navy shipyard. In the late 19th century it was decided that the area where Bremerton now sits would be ideal to build ships, and a businessman and his brother in law decided to buy up the land and take an early loss. However, the subsequent building of a city around that shipyard became a major center of additional wealth for the two business partners. The vision they demonstrated has turned into a very attractive and enjoyable area that has blossomed since the turn of the 20th century. The city of Bremerton has come through a reasonable amount of strife over a high early crime rate and even a large amount of urban blight in the downtown area during the middle of the 20th century, and become a stronger city than ever before.

Since the early part of the 20th century, the United States Navy has played an integral role in the development of the town. The city has had some hard times over the 20th century, and for a long time it looked as if the area had pretty much given up the ghost. However, as the 1990s drew near, the city began to pick up once again.

Growth is the name of the game for hungry cities, and sometimes a few risks need to be taken and some bold moves made in order to make a city become something truly special. Bremerton is no exception to these rules, and the entire area is a great place to walk around and take in some great sights. The city even has a celebration every year to honor a part of its natural heritage, even if the story is a bit on the silly side.

Today, Bremerton boasts a very lively arts district in its downtown area. Not only does the city actually feature a tunnel underneath downtown to allow a very pedestrian friendly mode of travel. It also features a large number of decorative features, such as the fountain park, which features the conning tower of a submarine and the bow of a ship within the various artworks on display. The overall effect of the downtown area is a lovely display of how a city can turn around from any amount of past hardships, provided its people have the will to do so.

Every year, the Blackberry Festival comes around. This celebrates a growth of wild blackberries which were chopped away to make room for the Ferry Terminal, the Boardwalk and the waterfront's Fountain Park.

About Kitsap County, Washington

Bremerton Washington is a city located within Kitsap County, Washington. Kitsap County was originally formed by taking pieces out of several other counties in the middle of the 19th century. While the original name was Slaughter County, which proved unpopular and inappropriate and was quickly changed.

The United States Navy is the largest employer of people in the county, due to the large amount of water around the area. A very significant percentage of the county itself is actually composed of water. The county itself is slightly Demoncratic-leaning in its voting tendencies, but it has definite battleground characteristics caused by the fact that neither major political party is guaranteed victory there.

Kitsap County was originally formed in 1857 when the Washington State government decided to remove sections of King County, Washington County and Jefferson County. For a short time, Kitsap County was named Slaughter County, but the name proved grating to the local population. The new name, in the honor of Chief Kitsap of the Suquamish Native American tribe, proved far more palatable. Since that time, the area has seen reasonably high levels of growth and fairly strong stability, no doubt partly due to the Navy's stabilizing influence.

Kitsap County has generally voted for Democratic candidates at most levels of government in past elections. However, in many cases the differences between the winning and losing candidate's percentage of the vote was so tiny that most politicians consider this a county that deserves to be fought for. Since Kitsap County is not technically incorporated, the Republicans do have a stronghold of conservative and independent values among the local population.

The working class city of Bremerton is one powerful example of a stronghold of Democrat idealogy, although Native American reservations in the area also play a role in keeping Democrats winning the electorate. In some cases, isolated pockets will grant Democratic candidates a 2 to 1 knockout of even a 10 to 1 landslide victory in the vote. However, some more moderate places such as Poulsbo also vote Democratic, although the margins are nowhere near as enormous nor the victory nearly as guaranteed as in the more extreme areas.