Editing Steilacoom, Washington (section)

==History==
[[File:Steilacoom, WA Town Hall 01.jpg|left|thumb|Town hall]]
The [[Steilacoom people]], a [[Coast Salish]] tribe, lived in what became the city of Steilacoom.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Indian Claims Commission |title=Indian Claims Commission Decisions, Volume 11, Part 1 |pages=332–33|date=1978 |publisher=Native American Rights Fund |location=Washington, DC |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_6lFAQAAIAAJ}}</ref> Their main village was called Scht’ləqʷəm, later anglicized as ''Steilacoom''.<ref>[http://www.townofsteilacoom.com/history/origins.htm History: Origins] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110717081643/http://www.townofsteilacoom.com/history/origins.htm |date=July 17, 2011 }}, Town of Steilacoom</ref> [[William Bright]] says the name comes from the Southern [[Coast Salish peoples|Coast Salish]] subgroup ''/č'tílqʷəbš/'', anglicized as "Steilacoom".<ref name="Bright2004">{{cite book|last=Bright|first=William|author-link=William Bright|title=Native American placenames of the United States|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5XfxzCm1qa4C&pg=PA461|access-date=April 11, 2011|year=2004|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press|isbn=978-0-8061-3598-4|page=461}}</ref>

The [[United States Army]] established [[Fort Steilacoom]] in August 1849 following attacks on [[Fort Nisqually]]. European-American settlement at Steilacoom began with Lafayette Balch, a [[Captain (nautical)|sea captain]] from [[Maine]] who arrived in 1851. The following year, Balch opened a sawmill to process and export [[lumber]] to [[San Francisco]] and named the settlement "Port Steilacoom". An adjacent settlement, Steilacoom City, was founded in June 1851 by John B. Chapman.<ref name="Timeline">{{cite web |title=Timeline |url=https://www.townofsteilacoom.org/209/Timeline |publisher=Town of Steilacoom |accessdate=May 18, 2024}}</ref><ref name="HistoryLink">{{cite web |last=Echtle |first=Edward |date=November 28, 2018 |title=Steilacoom — Thumbnail History |url=https://www.historylink.org/file/20675 |work=[[HistoryLink]] |accessdate=May 18, 2024}}</ref> The two settlements were merged into Steilacoom, which was named the [[county seat]] of [[Pierce County, Washington|Pierce County]] on December 12, 1852, and incorporated on April 22, 1854. Steilacoom was the first town in [[Washington Territory]] to be incorporated.<ref name="Timeline"/><ref name="HL-Pierce">{{cite web |last=Becker |first=Paula |date=November 13, 2006 |title=Pierce County — Thumbnail History |url=https://dev.historylink.org/File/8001 |work=HistoryLink |accessdate=May 18, 2024}}</ref>
[[File:DeVore monument inscription.jpg|left|thumb|187x187px|First Protestant Church North of the Columbia Monument]]
Steilacoom had the first [[jail]] in Washington and the first [[sawmill]]. It has four individual buildings and sites listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places]], including the [[Steilacoom Catholic Church|oldest Catholic Church]] in the state, the first Protestant Church north of the [[Columbia River]], as well as the Steilacoom Historic District, with 68 contributing properties.{{citation needed|date=May 2024}} The town remained prominent in the region until the construction of the [[Northern Pacific Railway]], which opened in 1873 with a terminus in [[Tacoma, Washington|Tacoma]]. The county seat was moved from Steilacoom to Tacoma in 1880; an [[interurban]] streetcar was built in 1891 to connect the two cities.<ref name="HistoryLink" /> Fort Steilacoom was redeveloped into [[Western State Hospital (Washington)|Western State Hospital]], a state-run mental health facility that now lies in the adjacent and larger city of [[Lakewood, Washington|Lakewood]].