Point Robinson Lighthouse

Puget Sound's East Passage, connecting the large port cities of Seattle and Tacoma, is today one of the nation's busiest waterways. Numerous minor lights and three important lighthouses-Alki Point, Point Robinson, and Browns Point-mark this murky portal. The Coast Guard monitors as many as 15,000 vessel movements in the East Passage every month, many of them container ships and barges. Prior to the 1870s, however, there was little more than the occasional schooner, sloop, or lighter traveling the East Passage and southern Puget Sound was sparsely populated by mostly farmers and fishermen.