Blake Island was traditionally used as a summer camping ground by the , a predecessor band of the
Suquamish tribe. In about 1786, according to Suquamish oral tradition it was the birthplace of
Chief Seattle, a Suquamish and
Duwamish leader for whom the city of
Seattle was named. The first European to record the island was British explorer
George Vancouver in 1792, as part of his exploration of Puget Sound, though it was not named. In 1841, Lt.
Charles Wilkes of the
United States Exploring Expedition named it Blake Island for
George Smith Blake, the officer in charge of the United States Coast Survey between 1837 and 1848. Locally, it was known as Smuggler's Island. In the mid 19th century, the island was logged for its timber. During the
Prohibition, it was frequently used as a refuge for bootleggers smuggling alcohol from
Canada.
William Pitt Trimble, a Seattle millionaire, purchased Blake island, and renamed it Trimble Island. By 1917 he and his family lived there in a magnificent estate. The Trimble family invited
Camp Fire Girls from Seattle, and throughout Washington state to hold their first summer resident camp on Trimble Island in 1920. The girls named their camp
Camp Sealth in honor of the birthplace of Chief Sealth. They paid for a delivery of logs, but soon found them floating away at high tide. They scrambled to haul them back, and soon found themselves dealing with a fire on the island. Because the Trimble family had other plans for the island, Camp Fire Girls of Seattle searched for a new, and permanent location for Camp Sealth and by the next summer had moved it to
Vashon Island, where it remains today. The Trimble family's occupation of the island came to an end in 1929 when William Trimble's wife Cassandra died in an accident in Seattle, after which the family abandoned the island and left the house to decay. Trimble sold Blake Island to an investment company in 1936 and retired in Seattle. During
World War II, a unit of the
Coastal Artillery of the
US Army was garrisoned in the Trimble mansion. The again-abandoned mansion burned around 1948, when a fire built by two young men trying to get warm went out of control, leaving only the foundations visible today. In 1959, the state of Washington made the entire island a state park. In 1993,
U.S. President Bill Clinton hosted member economies' leaders on Blake Island for an
APEC Meeting. ==Activities and amenities==