Downtown Shelton Live Cam

Foundations and Early Settlement of Downtown Shelton

Downtown Shelton, in Mason County, Washington, occupies terrain steeped in Pacific Northwest history, from its roots as Indigenous land to its development as a logging and commercial hub. The area around Shelton was originally inhabited and stewarded by the Squaxin Island Tribe, also known as the People of the Waters, whose ancestral presence extended across the Salish Sea’s inlets and rivers long before European-American settlement. The 1854 Treaty of Medicine Creek formally ceded these lands, enabling settlers such as David Shelton to claim territory under the Donation Land Claim Act, and thus launch the community that would take his name. Shelton was officially incorporated in 1890, marking its transition from a frontier outpost called “Cota” to a structured town with economic ambitions tied to natural resources.