Bainbridge Island is a city and island in Kitsap County, Washington, United States, located in Puget Sound. The population was 23,025 at the 2010 census and an estimated 25,298 in 2019,[8] making Bainbridge Island the second largest city in Kitsap County. Take a look below for 20 fascinating and amazing facts about Bainbridge Island, Washington, United States.

1. The island is separated from the Kitsap Peninsula by Port Orchard, with Bremerton lying to the southwest.

2. Bainbridge Island is connected to Seattle via the Washington State Ferries system and to Poulsbo and the Suquamish Indian Reservation by State Route 305, which uses the Agate Pass Bridge.

3. For thousands of years, members of the Suquamish people and their ancestors lived on the land now called Bainbridge Island.

4. There were nine villages on the island; this included winter villages at Port Madison, Battle Point, Point White, Lynwood Center, Port Blakely, and Eagle Harbor, as well as summer villages at Manzanita, Fletcher Bay, and Rolling Bay.

5. In 1792, English explorer Captain George Vancouver spent several days with his ship HMS Discovery anchored off Restoration Point at the southern end of Bainbridge Island while boat parties surveyed other parts of Puget Sound.

6. Vancouver spent a day exploring Rich Passage, Port Orchard, and Sinclair Inlet.

7. He failed to find Agate Passage, and so his maps show Bainbridge Island as a peninsula.

8. Vancouver named Restoration Point on May 29, the anniversary of the English Restoration, in honor of King Charles II.

9. In 1841, US Navy Lieutenant Charles Wilkes visited the island while surveying the Pacific Northwest. Lt. Wilkes named the island after Commodore William Bainbridge, commander of the frigate USS Constitution in the War of 1812.

10. Settlers originally used Bainbridge Island as a center for the logging and shipbuilding industries.

11. The island was known for huge and accessible cedars, which were especially in demand for ships’ masts.

12. The original county seat of Kitsap County was at Port Madison on the island’s north end.

13. In 1855, the Suquamish tribe relinquished their claim to Bainbridge Island by signing the Point Elliott Treaty.

14. The Suquamish agreed to cede all of their territory (which included Bainbridge Island) to the United States in exchange for a reservation at Port Madison and fishing rights to Puget Sound.

15. The first generation of Japanese immigrants, the Issei, came in 1883. During World War II, Japanese-American residents of Bainbridge Island were the first to be sent to internment camps, an event commemorated by the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial, which opened in 2011.

16. They were held by the US government through the duration of the war for fear of espionage.

17. A High-frequency direction finding (HFDF) station was established here by the Navy during the war.

18. Since the 1960s, Bainbridge Island has become an increasingly affluent bedroom community of Seattle, a 35-minute ride away on the Washington State Ferries.4

19. The city has occupied the entire space of Bainbridge island since February 28, 1991, when the city of Winslow (around 1.5 square miles (3.9 km2) of land on Eagle Harbor, incorporated August 9, 1947) annexed the rest of the island after a narrowly passed November 1990 referendum.

20. It officially remained the city of Winslow for several months, until November 7, 1991 at which time the city of Winslow was renamed the city of Bainbridge Island.