Ah, summer days on Puget Sound. Clear blue skies, low humidity, and temperatures in the 70s — the reward for enduring eight months of drizzly gray. It was on one of these perfect days that we explored Penrose Point State Park, roaming the woods and shoreline, pausing to gaze at Mount Rainier suspended on the horizon above the cobalt water of Carr Inlet.
Hiking the point
We started with the park’s namesake point, finding it pretty easy to get around at low tide except for a few mud slicks and fallen trees that required some minor gymnastics. At the end of the point, several social trails appear to head into the forest, but when Mr. Adventure tried to follow one we learned they don’t go anywhere. He eventually had to bushwhack back through to the real trail, emerging dusted with leaves and scratched from branches. The real trail is root-crossed but clearly signed, so stay on it.
On the point’s east side, facing Carr Inlet, kayaks and motorboats bobbed in the waters. A melange of oyster shells, sand dollars, barnacles, and cobbles creates a beach made for investigating. Dried seaweed, bleached ecru by the sun, festooned driftwood and the branches of trees growing precariously over the water.
We lunched on a drift log, watching a golden retriever splashing in the shallows and a C140 cargo plane flying low on the horizon. As we sat, a passel of kids tumbled out of the forest. Momentarily astonished by the view of Mount Rainier, one of them yelled, “It’s floating!” A moment later they scattered, shouting happily. The moment encapsulated the laid-back vibe at Penrose Point, one the namesake family probably would have appreciated.
Penrose of Penrose Point
Point and park are named for Stephen Beasley Linnard Penrose, a longtime president of Whitman College in Walla Walla who vacationed here for decades with his family. Penrose came to the Northwest in 1890 to serve a Congregational Church in Dayton, about 30 miles northeast of Walla Walla. In 1892 he became secretary of Whitman’s Board of Trustees, and in 1894 the Trustees elected him president of the college. He was 30 years old.
Penrose was the school’s longest-serving president, leading Whitman College from 1884 to 1934. He took over when the school was on the brink of closing because of financial hardship and lack of students. By changing academic standards and raising money from East Coast benefactors whom he knew from his students days at Yale Divinity School, Penrose reversed the school’s fortunes.
He married Mary Deming Shipman Penrose in 1894, and the couple eventually had six children. On the advice of friends in Spokane who urged them to head to Puget Sound to escape eastern Washington’s punishing summer heat, the Penroses had visited nearby Delano Hotel in the 1890s. Owned by a retired sea captain and his wife, the hotel was a stately three-story inn with 20 rooms and dining and music rooms for guests. Cottages, a post office, and a floating dock were added as the resort grew in popularity.
Summers at the point
The Delanos owned all the land from Delano Bay to Prospect (now Penrose) Point, and Stephen Penrose often rowed to the end of the thickly forested point to enjoy the views across Carr Inlet and toward Mount Rainier. He was so taken with the area that in 1901 he struck a deal with the Delanos and, using seed money from one of his sisters, bought 6.75 acres at the tip of Prospect Point for a family camp. The Penroses built trails and tent and kitchen platforms in the woods, naming their retreat The Madronas after the graceful native broad-leaf trees with peeling red bark found atop bluffs above saltwater around Puget Sound. Locals called it the Penrose Camp, and the spit eventually became known as Penrose Point.
Penrose often brought Whitman students along for the summer. Family and guests pitched in for meals and other camp duties. Supplies had to be picked up by boat from various farms and marinas, and Mary Penrose sent the laundry on a Tacoma-bound boat, exchanging dirty for clean once a week. The family eventually purchased a 25-foot motor launch they named Waiilatpu after the mission established by Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, the namesakes of Whitman College.
Community stalwart
Although Penrose described himself as “only a summer resident,” he gave Sunday services at Key Peninsula communities including Lakebay and Home and on Fox Island during his two-month stays. In 1906, Penrose helped establish the Longbranch Congregational Church, the community hall of which is named for him.
In 1916, Penrose lost the sight in one eye. Eight years later, he became totally blind, and tried to resign from the Whitman presidency. The Board of Trustees refused his resignation, and he served for another decade before stepping down and becoming chair of the Philosophy Department, a position he held until his death in 1940.
A beloved family tradition
Penrose’s children and grandchildren had fond memories of summers on Penrose Point. In a 1989 brochure written for the park by daughter Mary Penrose Copeland and granddaughters Frances and Peggy, they recalled sipping cocoa and toasting marshmallows at nightly campfires, where entertainment featured “always hilarious” skits and singing. Clam chowder was everyone’s favorite meal, and everyone pitched in with chores. At the end of the summer, the family would store the camp gear in a local farmer’s shed until next year.
The pictures painted on our minds of this the camp deluxe,
Can never be effaced by time, by work, or stupid books.
For tho’ no painter an express in color Nature’s dream,
We’ll carry in our memories these days so grand, serene.
—Clement B. Penrose (son of Stephen and Mary Penrose), 1940
Family camp to state park
To expand the family camp, Penrose had leased school trust land from the state between the point and Mayo Cove on the west. In 1951, the surviving Penroses returned the land to the state Department of Natural Resources, which in 1953 sold it to Washington State Parks. These 72 acres became the core of the state park, named for Penrose in 1974. It took State Parks another 28 years to acquire the original Penrose property, 6.75 acres at the tip of the point, which had been sold by Mary Penrose’s estate in 1959 to a Port Orchard lawyer. In 1987, State Parks finally purchased the acreage, for a total price of about $216,000 (about $600,000 today). In the interim, State Parks continued to add land incrementally to create today’s 225-acre park with nearly two miles of mostly low-bank saltwater shoreline.
On the west side of Mayo Cove, a sandspit juts out into the water. Packed with people, the narrow beach is a popular swimming spot. A dock on the other side of the spit offers moorage for boaters and calm water for wading and paddleboarding. Across the cove, the built-on-stilts Lakebay Marina was a stop for boats of the Mosquito Fleet, the small, speedy ships used for transport on Puget Sound before a reliable road system existed. But the historic marina building has fallen into disrepair. At the end of 2021, the Recreational Boating Association of Washington (RBAW) and the Washington State Department of Natural Resources purchased the marina and 2.8 acres of tidelands and uplands to preserve public recreation access. State Parks will manage the uplands portion of the property.
Fewer campers, quiet forest
On our Independence Day visit, we observed plenty of people in the day-use and camping areas, lots of boats tied up to mooring buoys and the docks, and a relaxed atmosphere. Because of statewide burn bans, campfires weren’t allowed, and a ranger told us some overnighters had left early for that reason. For some folks, if they can’t cook over an open fire, they’re not really camping.
Most people were planted near the water, so we headed into the forest, following a lettered trail system that makes several loops through the park. Gnarly alder trees and Western redcedars lined the path, where filtered sunlight made us feel like we were in an emerald terrarium. The same group of kids we’d seen on the beach ran by, laughing high-spiritedly as their parents followed more sedately. We popped out of the woods at the day-use parking area, enriched by our day at lovely, laid-back Penrose Point.
Fast Facts about Penrose Point State Park
- 225-acre camping park, open year round
- 1.8 miles saltwater shoreline
- Discover Pass required, $10 daily or, for a very reasonable $30, purchase an annual pass
- 82 standard campsites, 35’ max length recommended, Cascadia Marine trail campsite, 2 hiker-biker sites, group camp, reservable online or by calling 888-CAMPOUT
- restrooms, showers, dump station, picnic tables, grills
- 2.5 miles hiking and biking trails
- birdwatching, wildlife viewing
- amphitheater, fire circles, horseshoe pits
- beachcombing, diving, swimming, fishing, shellfishing (license required)
- boating, boat pumpout, 158’ dock and 8 moorage buoys, permit required
- park brochure
- park map
Land Acknowledgment
Penrose Point State Park occupies lands traditionally used by Coast Salish peoples. The Squaxin, Nisqually, Puyallup, and Steilacoom peoples all fished, gathered shellfish, and traded along this stretch of the Key Peninsula. A Squaxin village called S’Hotle-Ma-Mish existed on Carr Inlet’s upper reaches at least until the Treaty of Medicine Creek in 1854. Under the terms of the treaty, negotiated in Chinook Jargon, a trade language unsuitable for complex dialogue, the Squaxin, who had villages on all seven inlets of southern Puget Sound, were moved to a small island. But with no fresh water source on the island, the Squaxin quickly dispersed around their ancestral homeland, where most of them still live. No Squaxin people live on the island today, instead using it for hunting, fishing, shellfishing, camping, and other tribal activities. Non-tribal members are not allowed there without tribal permission and a tribal member accompanying them.
As always, Lauren, I imagine myself following in your footsteps, tramping the trails, soaking up the atmosphere, and beachcombing for shells. And bonus, you usually offer some interesting history unknown to me but now added to my collection of local stories. As we are a Whitman family I will forward this post on to be enjoyed by my grads! Where will you go next? I await my tag-along adventure!
Anne