The WSGA's 20th Anniversary GeoTour will end on December 31, 2024, at 11:59pm 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 all of your passports of unique codes for the geocoins (if qualified). There will be no exceptions.
With all that said, cache on! 😃😃
You will be driving out into a very rural area, but this area has a bit of history behind it. Below is just a tiny bit of the history which you will need in order to get the final coordinates.
Dewatto Valley
Dewatto, a community considered to be a part of the unincorporated community of Tahuya, is in Mason County, Washington. Dewatto is located on the Kitsap Peninsula on the eastern shore of Hood Canal. At the center of Dewatto is the Dewatto River, which slowly trickles into Dewatto Bay before emptying into Hood Canal. The community is about 15 miles west of Belfair, Washington, the commercial center of North Mason County.
Settlers first came to the Dewatto Valley in 1883. Since there were no roads, these early settlers moved their possessions by boat from Union, Washington, a small community across the Hood Canal and south of Dewatto. In 1893, John Green built a home at the head of Dewatto Bay. He planted fruit trees on his homestead. After meeting the Nance family in Seattle, Green convinced the family, originally from Kentucky, to homestead in the Dewatto Valley. Other early settlers included the Cunningham and Mickelson families, who brought the first cows to Dewatto.
A post office was established in 1889 and a store had opened by 1890. By 1915, the town of Dewatto had grown considerably thanks to the logging industry on the Kitsap Peninsula. That year the settlers held a dedication for the first of three schools in the Dewatto area. Residents constructed a second school soon after. Though the third and final school, a brick building overlooking the water from the south shore of Dewatto Bay, was the most permanent, it has not survived. To help its growing community, citizens led by Irving H. Betz, George Cunningham, and Carrie Nance petitioned the Board of County Commissioners of Mason County in February 1927 to create a public port district in the area.
Early Years of the Port
The petition for a port district proposed three Port Commissioner’s Districts of approximately equal population and boundaries on the shore of Hood Canal. The principal town in the proposed port district was Dewatto. Shortly after receiving the petition, the Board of County Commissioners scheduled a hearing for the petition on February 28, 1927, at the Mason County Court House in Shelton.
During the hearing the Board of County Commissioners reported that the proposed port district had a population of fewer than 1,500 in 1927. It also noted that the proposed boundaries of the port district needed to change slightly, as the proposed port district overlapped with the Port of Tahuya. After correcting the port district boundaries, the county commissioners set a date for a special election on April 7, 1927. It announced that voter registration would close on March 18. Three residents instrumental in the port district proposal ran for each of the three commissioners seats: Carrie Nance in Port Commissioners’ District No. 1, George Cunningham in District No. 2, and Irving H. Betz in District No. 3.
On April 7, 1927, voters approved the formation of the Port of Dewatto by a vote of 37 in favor and 13 against. In one of the first Port of Dewatto meetings, the commissioners voted to approve the construction of a pier and slip on Dewatto Bay. They allocated $7,500 to the project. A dock for loading logs had been built previously on Dewatto Bay, but the commissioners believed a new dock would serve the community as a place for loading and unloading supplies. Unfortunately, it appears the dock was never built.
The Port of Dewatto probably remained active into World War II, but probably went dormant as people moved away from the Dewatto area and the town lost its logging dock, school, store, and post office. Though some people continued to live in the Dewatto area, the completion of roads connecting Dewatto and Tahuya as well as Dewatto and Clifton (now Belair) meant that a public dock became a much lower priority.
To learn more about Dewatto please visit this website: https://historylink.org/File/9719#:~:text=Settlers%20first%20came%20to%20the,fruit%20trees%20on%20his%20homestead
The coordinate numbers per letter are in the ( ).
A. How did settlers move their possessions
(2) Horseback from Belfair
(5) Made roads into Dewatto
(0) By boat from Union
B. Who was the first settler?
(2) Irving H. Betz
(0) John Green
(5) Carrie Nance
C. Which opened first?
(7) Store
(9) Post Office
(8) School
X. In 1927, what month & date did they schedule a hearing for the petition?
(5) February 28
(9) April 7
(6) March 15
Y. How many commissioner seats were there?
(5) 2
(4) 5
(7) 3
Z. Was the new dock built?
(4) No
(5) Yes
(3) Unsure
N 47 27.ABC W 123 03.XYZ
In September 2002, a group of 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, provide 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 give you the opportunity to travel to all corners of the Evergreen State while you search for 140 GeoTour caches. To make it easier to tackle such a large GeoTour, each of our 7 regional chapters will host 20 chapter-specific geocaches in bite-sized GeoTours with the entire GeoTour consisting of 140 caches. To learn more about our GeoTour, please visit the GeoTour page on our website which you can find HERE. We hope that you enjoy getting back out on the road while touring around Washington State. If you have any questions about our GeoTour, you can reach out to us via the contact tab on our website.
