Bainbridge Island, Washington

Bainbridge Island is a city and island in Kitsap County, Washington, United States. It is located in Puget Sound. The population was 24,825 at the 2020 census, making Bainbridge Island the second largest city in Kitsap County. The city limits encompass the entire island.

The island is separated from the Kitsap Peninsula by Port Orchard, with Bremerton lying to the southwest. Bainbridge Island is a suburb of Seattle, connected to downtown via a Washington State Ferries route. Road access is provided by State Route 305, which uses the Agate Pass Bridge, and continues to Poulsbo and the Suquamish Indian Reservation.

For thousands of years, members of the Suquamish people and their ancestors lived on the land now called Bainbridge Island. There were nine villages on the island; these included winter villages at Port Madison, Battle Point, Point White, Lynwood Center, Port Blakely, and Eagle Harbor, as well as summer villages at Manzanita, Fletcher Bay, and Rolling Bay.

In 1792, English explorer Captain George Vancouver spent several days with his ship HMS Discovery anchored off Restoration Point at the southern end of Bainbridge Island while boat parties surveyed other parts of Puget Sound. Vancouver spent a day exploring Rich Passage, Port Orchard, and Sinclair Inlet. He failed to find Agate Passage, and so his maps show Bainbridge Island as a peninsula. Vancouver named Restoration Point on May 29, the anniversary of the English Restoration, in honor of King Charles II.

In 1841, US Navy Lieutenant Charles Wilkes visited the island while surveying the Pacific Northwest. Lt. Wilkes named the island after Commodore William Bainbridge, commander of the frigate USS Constitution in the War of 1812. Settlers originally used Bainbridge Island as a center for the logging and shipbuilding industries with the island being clearcut at least two times in its history. The island was known for huge and accessible cedars, which were especially in demand for ships' masts. The original county seat of Kitsap County was at Port Madison on the island's north end.

In 1855, the Suquamish tribe relinquished their claim to Bainbridge Island by signing the Point Elliott Treaty. The Suquamish agreed to cede all of their territory (which included Bainbridge Island) to the United States in exchange for a reservation at Port Madison and fishing rights to Puget Sound.

The first generation of Japanese immigrants, the Issei, came in 1883. During World War II, Japanese-American residents of Bainbridge Island were the first to be sent to internment camps, an event commemorated by the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial, which opened in 2011. They were held by the US government through the duration of the war for fear of espionage. A High-frequency direction finding (HFDF) station was established here by the Navy during the war. These radio intercept sites along the West Coast were used to track Japanese warships and merchant marine vessels as far away as the Western Pacific. The other West Coast stations were in California at Point Arguello, Point Saint George, Farallon Islands and San Diego.

Since the 1960s, Bainbridge Island has become an increasingly affluent bedroom community of Seattle, a 35-minute ride away on the Washington State Ferries.