The region’s tribes, including the Puyallup, Nisqually, Suquamish and Squaxin, have long inhabited the small Puget Sound bay known today as Gig Harbor. Bands from the northern and southern parts of Puget Sound often camped on its shores as they roamed the sound in pursuit of fish, shellfish, berries, and roots.
One band, called the Twa-Wal-Kut, established its permanent camp near the rich shellfish beds at the head of the bay where Donkey Creek enters Puget Sound. The Twa-Wal-Kut village consisted of a 100-foot longhouse and several smaller cedar huts. According to the band’s “dimly remembered” oral tradition, they were once part of a Puyallup band that had canoed over from Commencement Bay. An 1879 Indian census counted 46 members of what it called the “Gig Harbor Band.”