Click on the Timeline and see Aberdeen the way it was!
Click on a date and read about a slice of Aberdeen history!


1920 - April 2 - Two circular saws with 108” diameter (worlds largest) installed at Coates Shingle company in Hoquiam.

1920 - April 3 - Powerboat Phoenix fails to cross bar for 5th time; crew blames it on cross-eyed black cat and two caskets going to Queets.

1920 - May 27 - Weatherwax High school closed for 10 days due to smallpox epidemic.

1920 - September 23 - Sea otters appear on lower Harbor for first time since 1900.

1920 - November 5 - Chehalis Highway opens; new entry in east Aberdeen.

1920 - November 27 - Barge Pirrie lost on coast; Found December 3 with twenty dead crewmen.

1922 - Aberdeen’s Armory building completed.

1922 - January 3 - British Liquor ship runs aground at Westport.

1922 - January 17 - Booze-laden submarine runs aground at Point Grenville.

1922 - August 8 - Worst drought since 1910; ˝ inch of rain in 76 days.

1922 - August 25 - Sharks, drawn by whale carcasses, put a stop to swimming in Harbor; drawn by whale carcasses.

1922 - September 26 - New port on Grays Harbor dedicated.

1922 - October 28 - Whaling season ends with 163.

1922 - October 30 - Over 100 tons of salmon caught over the weekend.

1922 - December 18 - Moonshiner’s business hurt by snowfall.

1922 - December 26 - Grays Harbor Railway & Light Company to lay cable under the Wishkah River to get power to east county.

1923 - January 24 - Russia wants to buy airplane spruce; mills say “NO WAY!”

1923 - February 3 - Road trip to Gray’s Monument chronicled in Daily World.

1923 - February 15 - Storm takes heavy toll on shipping; four missing.

1923 - April 21 - Harbor beaches called hot-beds of petty crime.

1923 - May 8 - Fierce fire at North West Mill in Hoquiam.

1923 - June 26 - Logging camps ban cigarettes due to fire hazard.

1923 - August 21 - Rare albino salmon caught on Humptulips River.

1923 - September 13 - Alex Polson says timber will last 1,000 years.

1923 - A record setting 1,128,750,000 board feet of lumber was cut on the Harbor in 1923; new record.

1924 - April 19 - Morck Hotel opens in Aberdeen.

1924 - May 8 - D & R Theater opens with "Scaramouche" and various vaudeville acts.

1924 - October 13 - Whale season ends with 181.

1925 - January 10 - First fully electric house in Aberdeen.

1925 - April 15 - Norwegian ship Dagfred carries first Harbor cargo directly to Europe.

1925 - November 7 - Elk’s Building & St. Mary’s School buildings under construction.

1926 - Wishkah Street Bridge opens.

1926 - January 1 - Woman trapped on new Wishkah Bridge; holds on until it lowers.

1926 - March 5 - Japanese freighter Horaisan Maru rolls over inside Harbor.

1926 - March 31 - Fifty Quinault Maples planted at Roosevelt (Sam Benn) Park in honor of 45 Harbor soldiers killed in war.

1926 - April 2 - Electricity to replace oil at Westport Lighthouse.

1926 - April 10 - First west bound airmail letters arrive in Hoquiam.

1926 - May 16 - New brick Methodist church dedicated.

1927 - February 7 - Hayes & Hayes Bank closed by Federal Government.

1927 - February 14 - KXRO radio goes on the air for the first time at 7:30 p.m. with a speech by Frank Lamb.

1927 - March 5 - Taholah Indian delivers two tons of clams to Aberdeen canneries.

1927 - August 26 - First phone lines reach Quinault.

1927 - September 14 - Charles Lindbergh circles the Spirit of St. Louis over Grays Harbor.

1927 - October 31 - Lumber shipments from Harbor exceed all other coastal ports.

1928 - January 6 - Leo Lomski, the “Aberdeen Assassin” fights Tommy Loughran for the world light-heavyweight championship title. Knocks Loughran down in first roundbut loses the decision.

1928 - February 21 - The 6,791-ton, 561 foot long freighter Robert Dollar docks in Aberdeen; largest ship to ever enter the Harbor.

1928 - May 11 - Governor Hatley cuts ribbon at Simpson Avenue Bridge opening in Hoquiam.

1928 - October 2 - Billy Gohl dies at Medical Lake Asylum.

1929 - January 11 - Two killed in train crash in Cosmopolis.

1929 - July 30 - Fire destroys 18 buildings in Cosmopolis.

1929 - August 2 - Aberdeen-Raymond highway nearly done.

1929 - October 7 - Harbor 31st port in Nation.

1929 - December 12 - Aberdeen population 26,073.