Anyone who looks at a current map of Puget Sound will spot large cities like Seattle and Tacoma and familiar geographic features like Point Defiance and Elliott Bay. But when you look at old maps of the sound, you realize that some names were different.

This 1889 map of Puget Sound and the Olympic Peninsula proves it.

What is Elliott Bay today was known as Duwamish Bay in 1889. Alki Point had a different name back then, too — Battery Point. As you look at the map, you notice several well-known towns nowadays – Bremerton, Everett, Bellevue, Burien, Edmonds and Federal Way – weren’t even in existence then. Yes, they literally weren’t even on the map!

This map is entitled “Sea Coast and interior harbors of Washington Territory from Gray’s Harbor to Olympia.”  It’s part of a large digital collection of historic maps of Washington and the Northwest region. Here is a list of all of the maps maintained by the Washington State Archives and Washington State Library.