Kent, WA news and local guide

European Americans first settled the Kent area permanently in the 1850s along what was then the White River. The first settler, Samuel Russell, sailed the White and Duwamish rivers and in the spring of 1853 claimed land southeast of today's downtown, and others soon staked claims nearby. David and Irena Neely settled in 1854, and in 1855, while David served as a lieutenant in the territorial army, their farm was attacked by Native Americans. A post office named White River opened at their farm in 1861. The settlements were first called White River and later Titusville, for the early settler James Henry Titus, and a Titusville Station sign still stands on Gowe Street. Henry L. Yesler, Seattle's first sawmill operator, also settled there. By 1870 the population was 277, and all the good bottomland had been claimed.

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In the 1860s and 1870s valley farmers earned most of their income from wheat, barley, oats, hay and timothy. In the late 1870s hops became the main crop, and when aphids ravaged European hop fields, Puget Sound hops brought high prices and were shipped from Titusville by river and rail. In 1889, when the Northern Pacific Railroad asked Ezra Meeker to name its station, he suggested Kent, after the great hop-growing county of England, and the town took the name as the "Hop Capital of the West." Sources Wikipedia: Kent, Washington