Our Earliest ResidentsThe original inhabitants of Hoquiam and the surrounding area had sophisticated cultures and an abundant way of life long before the first white explorers and settlers arrived at the mouth of what is now called Grays Harbor. They called themselves the Chehalis (Tsihalis) people.
They had five villages on the Chehalis River, seven on the north and eight on the south side of the bay. All were part of the Salish language group, and as such shared cultures, social organization and religious systems. The peoples here prospered from the riches of the sea and the land of the Northwest Pacific Coast.
Robert Grays Contribution
 While Washington, itself, was discovered by Spain's Bruno Hezeta, who sailed along Washington's coast in 1775, Captain Robert Gray, the American who had discovered Oregon, sailed May 7 of 1792 in his brig, the Columbia, into Grays Harbor.
Gray gained a solid reputation with the Quinaults, who called him "a very good Boston man."
Thirty years later, the wife of a Russian trader became the first white female to arrive in Grays Harbor. She was soon captured by the Quinault and when her husband attempted to ransom her, she refused to return to him preferring the indians' hospitality to his own.
 Fur Trading Impacts our Region
At the turn of the century, John Jacob Astor formed the Pacific Fur Company. There were now a total of three principal trading companies--the Pacific Fur Company, Boston Fur Company, and the English Hudson's Bay Company--in the region. The fur trade was abandoned several years later as intense competition depleted the otter population.
The Founding of Grays Harbor
 In the early 1850s, the Washington Territory was founded pulling Lewis County apart from the Oregon Territory. Grays Harbor County was established in 1854. Grays Harbor County, of course, takes its name from the explorer, Captain Gray.
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