Key Peninsula

Understand

Key Center is not large by most people's standards, however it is the largest town on the Key Peninsula. If you are heading south on your adventure this will be your last chance to visit a real grocery store.

Vaughn was named for W.D. Vaughn, who settled in the area around 1851. It was once an important port for the Key Peninsula. From the 1870s to the 1920s, transportation needs for Vaughn and other communities along Case Inlet were once served by a small flotilla of steamboats. The local community based monthly newspaper called the North Bay Review, services Allyn.

Seeing the quiet seaside community of Home today, it is difficult to imagine it as the area's hotbed for radical anarchists and nudists, but that is nonetheless the area's history from 1895, when after the failure of the industrial cooperative colony Glennis, east of Eatonville, three former Glennisites — George H. Allen, Oliver A. Verity, and B. F. O'Dell — set out in the summer into Puget Sound on a rowboat they built themselves to find an isolated location for a new community. They decided upon Von Geldern Cove (also known as Joe's Bay) as the site for their new Home Colony, which would be an intentional community based on anarchist philosophy. Land was apportioned to those who became members of the Mutual Home Association, agreeing to its anarchist ideals and to pay for their lot. The title to each member's land would stay with the Association. The Association also held title to a meeting hall and a trading post. When Home was plotted in 1901 it had increased in size to 217 acres (0.88 km2) and had become home to anarchists, communists, food faddists, freethinkers, nudists, and others who did not fit in with mainstream society.

Following the assassination of President McKinley by an anarchist in 1901, the community came under scrutiny. Inflammatory articles in Tacoma newspapers led to threats by a vigilante committee formed by members of the Grand Army of the Republic, who planned to invade the colony by steamboat and "put it to the torch." They were stopped when the steamboat owner refused to take them. In 1902, after charges of violation of the Comstock Act resulting from an article advocating free-love published in the local anarchist newspaper, Home's post office was closed by postal inspectors and moved two miles (3 km) to the smaller town of Lakebay. The Association became divided into disagreeing factions called "nudes" and "prudes." The two factions were coined in a series of editorials in the Home newspaper The Agitator in which editor Jay Fox defended Homeites arrested in 1911 for nude swimming against those who had reported them to county authorities. Because of these editorials, Fox was charged with the misdemeanor of encouraging or advocating disrespect for law or for any court or courts of justice and jailed for two months. In 1919 the Association was dissolved and the anarchist community, as it was, ended.

Lakebay is at the head of Mayo Cove on the east side of the Key Peninsula, and at the gateway to Penrose Point State Park. The Lakebay Marina began as a farmer’s co-op and a way for farmers to transport their crops to other towns long before it was a marina. In 1875, a logger named Carl Lorenz built boats in Lakebay to carry his finished lumber to town. He later used these boats to ferry farmers and their produce to other areas. His boats were part of what later became known as the Mosquito Fleet.

Longbranch is along Filucy Bay between Pitt Passage and Balch Passage. Longbranch is primarily residential and includes a marina, church, and community center. Longbranch was named after Long Branch, New Jersey in 1889, when founder Edward Yeasell wanted to duplicate that resort on the Puget Sound. However his plans never quite took hold and Longbranch eventually became the quiet community we know today.

Get in

By car

The main way in is the Key Peninsula Highway, which starts from a junction with WA-302 west of Purdy and extends almost to the south tip of the peninsula.

• Key Center is 8 mi south of Purdy.
• Vaughn is 2 mi west of Key Center, off the main highway
• Home is 13 mi south of Purdy.
• Lakebay is 16 mi south of Purdy.
• Longbranch is 18 mi south of Purdy, near the southern end of the peninsula.

By boat

• Lakebay Marina & Resort is closed for restoration and redevelopment. There is no announced opening date.

• Joemma Beach State Park provides a boat launch and water trail campsites, 5 buoys and 500 feet dock footage.
• Penrose Point State Park has 8 state buoys and 304 feet of dock that is available for visiting boaters.
• Taylor Bay Park offers access for non-motorized boats.

Get around

The small communities are walkable by foot. You will need a vehicle or vessel to get from one community to the other.

By boat

This is an excellent area to explore by boat. Vaughn Bay's gentle waters are protected by a spit, inlets at Home and Lakebay are interesting to explore, and there are several islands nearby. Many of the nearby homes either have their own docks, and some of them are even built on piers directly over the water.

Eat and drink

There are a few restaurants in Home and around Key Center.

Go next

• Gig Harbor
• Port Orchard

By boat

• Fox Island is about 8 miles east of Lakebay and would make a nice round-trip journey when exploring the area by boat.
• This also a good launching spot to explore Anderson Island and Eagle Island State Park.
• Nearby McNeil Island is a prison island and access is strictly controlled by the state penitentiary system.
• Gig Harbor has the closest marinas offering fuel, by traveling under the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. Look for the lighthouse marking the small opening to the harbor.