The WSGA's 20th Anniversary GeoTour will end on December 31, 2024, at 11:59 pm PT.
You will only have until this date and time to find the geocaches, post all of your logs for the digital souvenirs (if qualified), and submit your passports of unique codes for the geocoins (if qualified). There will be no exceptions.
Jacobs Point, situated between Oro Bay proper and East Oro Bay, became an island park in 2011. Sometimes known as Brickyard Point because of the factory that once flourished on the peninsula's north side, B.F. Jacobs eventually purchased most of the point, beginning with parcels belonging to W.R. Flaskett around 1910.
When young Claude Jacobs, a recent cum laude graduate in pre-law from the University of Washington, and his bride Maude, an elementary school teacher, wed in August 1915, they received a half-interest in the Anderson Island property as a wedding present.
Claude’s dream was to try farming, and Maude, educated as a teacher, was “most willing to try to succeed as a farmer’s wife,” as she wrote later in life.
That winter, they lived on the family yacht, the Corsair II, while they renovated an old cabin on the brickyard's site. Claude worked hard planting vetch for livestock feed, building pigpens, and a new chicken house. The young couple quickly became friends with the Carl Ostling family, who lived on the farm across the bay now operated by the Martinez family. They rowed across the bay daily to get drinking and washing water.
Later on, B.F., Claude’s father, brought over two carpenters, and work began on a new home on the other side of the point, facing what is known today as Brandt Road. Claude hand-dug a 40 ft. well. They put in a garden, sold eggs and cream, and made butter and soap. A daughter, Esther, was born in Puyallup on July 28, 1916.
Claude was also busy in the community. The only islander with a college degree, Claude was elected president of the Board of Pierce County School District No. 24, which operated the one-room school at Wide-Awake Hollow. He also served as President of the Anderson Island Social Club, whose mission was to establish telephone service in the community.
The young family began developing roots on the island when World War I intervened. They abandoned their fine home in 1917, and from then on, it was only occasionally home to squatters and, for a spell after World War II, to Claude Jacobs, who had not given up his dream of farming. The house was still habitable as late as 1978, though the roof was beginning to fail. Today, all that remains is a tall chimney that once served as a rather impressive fireplace.
In September 2002, 19 concerned geocachers scheduled a meeting after hearing that the Washington State Parks was considering banning geocaches in the state park system. Out of this meeting, the Washington State Geocaching Association (WSGA) was "born" with its core values of promoting geocaching as a fun, family-oriented outdoor activity that increases awareness and appreciation of the environment and our parks and trails, provides opportunities for participants to enjoy geocaching and to socialize with other geocaches, educate park systems and land managers about geocaching and its benefits, increase awareness and support of the geocaching through interaction with other outdoor groups and the public, encourage low-impact geocaching and promote stewardship of our natural resources, and support "Cache In Trash Out" activities to help maintain parks and trail systems.
In 2022, the WSGA turns 20 years young. To celebrate this milestone, the WSGA is hosting a 20th-anniversary GeoTour. This GeoTour will allow you to travel to all corners of the Evergreen State while you search for 140 GeoTour caches. To make tackling such a large GeoTour easier, each of our seven regional chapters will host a bite-sized GeoTour consisting of 20 GeoTour caches and the entire GeoTour composed of 140. To learn more about our GeoTour, please visit the GeoTour page on our website, which you can find HERE. We hope you enjoy returning to the road while touring around Washington State. If you have any questions about our GeoTour, you can contact us via the contact tab on our website.
