Grays Harbor

It is a ria, which formed at the end of the last ice age, when sea levels flooded the Chehalis River.

A few days later, on May 11, Gray found a navigable channel into the estuary of the Columbia River, and sailed into it, the first white man known to have done so.

As the forests of the eastern United States depleted, many loggers from the East and the Midwest migrated to the Grays Harbor area, as well as many Scandinavians and Finns from Europe.

[3] Grays Harbor National Wildlife Refuge is located on 1,500 acres (6.1 km2) of intertidal mudflats, salt marsh, and uplands around Hoquiam.

[12] The schooner Annie Larsen was seized at Grays Harbor on 25 June 1915 by US customs officials, later leading to what was at the time the most expensive trial in US legal history.