Mosquito Fleet: Connecting Early Edmonds to Other Puget Sound Towns

Puget Sound and the Inside Passage—the sheltered channel that runs along the coast between British Columbia and Alaska—provide a natural transportation corridor of protected water stretching from Olympia to the rugged Alaskan panhandle.

Long before the first Europeans arrived, Native Americans plied these waters in tribal canoes, building commerce, cultural exchange and political ties between settlements.

Early white settlers followed this pattern. They built steam vessels by the thousands to move settlers, farm produce, livestock, foodstuffs, machinery, building materials, timber, mail and everything else needed to build and serve the growing number of settlements dotting the coastline.

The steam vessels were so numerous that people said they resembled a swarm of mosquitoes, and to this day they are collectively known as the Mosquito Fleet. Every settlement, no matter how small, had a pier or float where boats would tie up to load and unload. Just as the Native American settlements were linked by canoe, these steamship whistle stops linked scores of otherwise isolated settlements into a greater community.

Edmonds was a vital cog in the Mosquito Fleet.

George Brackett's first wharf, constructed in 1884, lacked deep-water moorage, and steamers could only tie up at high tide (see Patch article "l"). Matthew Hyner, Edmonds postmaster, was frequently obliged to row his skiff out to meet the mail boat (See Patch article "").

This changed in 1890 with the construction of a new, longer wharf by the Minneapolis Realty and Investment Company. Minneapolis Realty invested heavily in Edmonds, hoping that the coming of the railroad would set off an economic boom and reap large profits.

Unfortunately for the company, the value of its investments plummeted during the financial panic of the 1890s. The company could no longer make payments and foreclosed in 1893. The newly incorporated city of Edmonds took over the wharf.

City Wharf was born.

From the beginning, City Wharf was a regular stop for Mosquito Fleet steamers. The Peabody Building, at the end of the wharf, was constructed by local realtor, enterprise capitalist, raconteur and curmudgeon Frank Peabody. A rooftop billboard advertised Peabody's services, ensuring it was the first thing visitors saw entering town.

By the 1920s, roads and bridges had improved, providing another link between the region's towns and cities. As the role of the Mosquito Fleet declined, City Wharf took on a new role as the terminus for the various cross-sound auto ferries serving Edmonds (see Patch article "").

Improvements and maintenance continue to this day, ensuing that the dock remains a vital link in the regional transportation system. The newly dedicated Sound Transit Edmonds Station now links ferry, railroad and bus service into a multimodal regional transit hub (see Patch article "").

Currently, construction crews are replacing the old wooden "dolphin" piling that helps guide ferries into the slip (see Patch article "").

The halcyon years of the Mosquito Fleet lasted from the 1880s to the early 1920s. During these years, some 2,500 individual steamers facilitated commerce, cultural exchange and travel between various Puget Sound area settlements, binding them into the larger regional community we know today. This is the lasting legacy of this motley collection of vessels.

The last remaining Mosquito Fleet vessel, the Virginia V, is maintained by the Virginia V Foundation. Learn more about this floating piece of Puget Sound maritime history at the Foundation's web site.