Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Photo: Parametrix, Inc. · Public domainMost of Clallam Bay was built recently: 6% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1980. Below: 4 old photos and papers and maps from 1984 on.
The Clallam Bay post office opened in 1890, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, East Clallam (1892), opened inside today’s town and later closed.
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Clallam Bay’s history is told.
From Wikipedia’s history of Clallam Bay.
Clallam Bay was founded in the 1880s as a steamboat stop. It became a mill town in 1890. Two years later, the mill burned, and making barrels for West Clallam Bay's tanning extract became its main industry. In 1905, the lighthouse at Slip Point was lighted on April Fool's Day.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
In the archiveClallam Bay seen from sailboat, Washington, ca. 1906
In the archiveGoodyear Logging Co. camp no. 1, Clallam Bay, Washington, ca. 1918
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey2 decades in the archive, from the 1900s to the 1910s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
The U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Clallam Bay.
1984Clallam Bay sheet · 1:24,000U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Clallam Bay.
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.
Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Clallam Bay’s page.
Retake this view · +15Nobody well known was born in Clallam Bay itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.
Clallam Bay had its own post office from 1890 to 1894. Another post office, East Clallam, opened and closed inside today’s town.
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
The Clallam Bay post office opened in 1890, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →
From Wikimedia Commons (4), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
c. 1918
Date?