Lake City, Pierce County, Washington

Lake City Pierce County, Washington

Mapped Location

Lake City: The mapped location is an approximation and should not be used for navigation or wayfinding.

Information

General information on Lake City

Feature Type: Place

Official, historical, colloquial and alternative toponyms for Lake City

A brief list of names that this geographic feature has been named

Name	Description
Lake City	Official

Origin Notes and History of Lake City

References to Lake City that document the origin of its place name

AMERICAN LAKE, a town and lake in Pierce County, near Tacoma. In 1917, Camp Lewis, one of the Federal Cantonments for the new army, was located in that vicinity and gave to American Lake an increased importance. There is a persistent error as to the origin of this name. The error declares that the name arose from the fact that the Wilkes Expedition celebrated the Fourth of July, 1841, on the shore of the lake and thus contributed to it a name. That is very beautiful but not true. Hubert Howe Bancroft (Works, Volume XXIX., page 189, footnote) quotes Elwood Evans's Puyallup Address as it appeared in the New Tacoma Ledger for July 9, 1880, as follows: "The lake was never formally named; but on account of the American celebration and the residence of the missionaries, was called American Lake, and sometimes Richmond Lake, by the settlers of the Puget Sound Company. The prairie was also called the American Plains, and by the natives, 'Boston Illahee.'" The Wilkes narrative does not even mention the lake, but it is quite clear in fixing the place of the famous Fourth of July celebration. In Volume IV., page 412, the record shows that the place of celebration was on the edge of Mission Prairie and that the men were landed from the ships and marched to the place "about a mile distant." The second or new Fort Nisqually was later built near the scene of the celebration and the fence of the Dupont Powder works now encloses the ground. Five years after the celebration, the Inskip chart, 1846, showed the location of the new Fort Nisqually, the mission building site, the racecourse and also indicated a road marked "To Gordon Lake" leading probably toward the present American Lake. Ten years later Preston's Map of Oregon and Washington West of the Cascade Mountains, 1856, shows the lake, then called "Lake Tolmie." Mrs. Mary Perry Frost says that in 1854 she moved into a cabin on their donation claim near the lake. Other American settlers had claims in the same vicinity and the name of American Lake undoubtedly grew from that fact, as the British still held the ground around Fort Nisqually. The monument erected in recent years to mark the site of the Wilkes celebration in 1841 is located about three miles from the right place.

Edmond S. Meany in Origin of Washington Geographic Names

Meany, Edmond S., Origin of Washington Geographic Names, 1923 University of Washington, pp 7 | Origin of Washington Geographic Names

Pierce County

Political Boundaries

Last updated: 2017-02-05