Winslow Warf Marina/Hall Brothers Shipyard
Hall Brothers Marine Railway and Shipbuilding Company was once one of the best-known makers of wooden ships on the Pacific Coast. Located on the northern shore of Eagle Harbor, the former site of the shipyard is now the Winslow Wharf Marina and the Washington State Ferries’ Eagle Harbor Maintenance Facility.
Brothers Isaac, Winslow, and Henry Knox Hall learned how to build ships in the 1840s in Cohasset, Massachusetts, the heart of America’s shipbuilding industry at the time. In 1881, the brothers opened a shipyard at Port Blakely on Bainbridge Island, where one of the world’s largest lumber mills operated. By 1903, however, the shipyard had outgrown its site and moved to Eagle Harbor beside the town of Madrone, which was subsequently renamed Winslow, in honor of one of the by-then deceased Hall brothers.[1]
By the time the shipyard relocated to Eagle Harbor in 1903, the Hall Brothers had constructed 108 vessels for customers in San Francisco, Hawai'i, and the Pacific Northwest. The shipyard remained an important industry for the island until the end of World War II.[2]
Today, the Eagle Harbor Maintenance Facility is the last working shipyard in the harbor. The facility at Eagle Harbor employs 115 skilled laborers who ensure the safety and reliability of the Washington State Ferries’ vessels.[3]
[1] Gary M. White, Hall Brothers Shipbuilders (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2008), 7-10; “Hall’s Modern Shipbuilding Plant at Eagle Harbor,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 24, 1903.
[2] White, Hall Brothers, 7.
[3] Luciano Marano, “Winslow’s Sole Working Shipyard; WSF Legacy Lives On, Amidst Modern Trials, at Eagle Harbor Facility,” Bainbridge Island Review, March 17, 2016, accessed August 10, 2016, http://www.bainbridgereview.com/news/372374841.html.
Credits and Sources:
Description by Madison Heslop on behalf of the American Society for Environmental History.
“Hall’s Modern Shipbuilding Plant at Eagle Harbor. Seattle Post-Intelligencer. May 24, 1903.
Marano, Luciano. “Winslow’s Sole Working Shipyard; WSF Legacy Lives On, Amidst Modern Trials, at Eagle Harbor Facility.” Bainbridge Island Review. March 17, 2016. Accessed August 10, 2014. http://www.bainbridgereview.com/news/372374841.html.
White, Gary M. Hall Brothers Shipbuilders. Images of America. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2008.
