Lost cities of the Strait: Port Crescent

Okay, the use of the term "cities" might be a bit of a stretch in this case, but I've found myself increasingly fascinated by a few forgotten coastal settlements along the Strait of Juan de Fuca.  Most of these were, I would guess, associated with logging in an era when moving logs overland was an impossibility.  Some were quite small, but others were impressively large communities...that have now more or less completely disappeared.  Port Crescent, for example, was an impressively large coastal community on Crescent Bay along the Strait of Juan de Fuca, supposedly envisioned originally as a big ship port.

Here is a view of part of town from 1905, looking to the east from a point on the current road leading down to Crescent Beach:

1905 view of Port Crescent.  Photo from the Burt Kellogg collection, North Olympic Library System

and here is the view from the same point today:

8 June 2020 photo looking east towards Crescent Bay

In the far field of both photos is Tongue Point, site of Salt Creek County Park, and where Fort Hayden was built during WWII.  Because of trees and shrubs it is sort of hard to make out the shoreline in the near field of the modern view.  Here is a modern view of approximately where the large hotel and wharf would have been:

Photo taken 8 June 2020 approximately here, approximately where the large wharf and hotel sat in the 1905 photo above.  

Barely a trace of the extensive turn-of-the-century development associated with this town is visible.