Shelton, Washington, United States

🇺🇸 Shelton is a city in and the county seat of Mason County, Washington, United States. Shelton is the westernmost city on Puget Sound. Shelton has a council–manager form of government and was the last city in Washington to use a mayor–commission form of government.

History Shelton was officially incorporated in 1890. The city was named after David Shelton, a delegate to the territorial legislature. The land was previously called "Cota" and was inhabited and managed by the Squaxin Island Tribe, or "People of the Waters", who had inhabited the land for centuries before contact with white settlers. The land was ceded, along with 4,000 sq. miles of Indigenous land, on December 26, 1854, with the passage of the Treaty of Medicine Creek. After the passage of the treaty, David Shelton and his wife, Frances Shelton, each took a claim of land enabled by the Donation Land Claim Act totaling 640 acres in what would eventually be incorporated as Shelton.

Shelton was once served by a small fleet of steamboats which was part of the Puget Sound Mosquito Fleet. These boats included the Old Settler, Irene, Willie, City of Shelton, Marian, Clara Brown, and S.G. Simpson. The economy was built around logging, farming, dairying and ranching as well as oyster cultivation. The Simpson Timber Company mill on Puget Sound's Oakland Bay dominated the landscape of the downtown area; the mill was sold to Sierra Pacific Industries in 2015, who are currently building a new mill. Shelton also identified itself as "Christmastown USA" due to the area's cultivation of Christmas trees; the name was later revived for an annual festival.

The Ridge Motorsports Park opened in 2012, and has hosted MotoAmerica and Trans-Am Series races.

Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 6.09 square miles (15.77 km²), of which 5.76 square miles (14.92 km²) is land and 0.33 square miles (0.85 km²) is water.

Education The Shelton School District is composed of eight schools: • Evergreen, Mountain View, and Bordeaux Elementary Schools, kindergarten through fourth grade • Olympic Middle School, fifth and sixth grades • Oakland Bay Junior High, seventh and eighth grades • Shelton High School, ninth through twelfth grades • CHOICE Alternative School, seventh through twelfth grade • Cedar High School, a New Tech Network Project-Based Learning high school for grades ninth through twelfth.