Lakewood, WA news and local guide

In 1849 the U.S. Army founded Fort Steilacoom between Lake Steilacoom and the town of Steilacoom, in what is now Lakewood, one of the first American military posts north of the Columbia River. It was built after settler alarm over the 1847 killings at the Whitman Mission and a May 1849 attack at the nearby British post of Fort Nisqually. The fort was headquarters of the 9th Infantry during the war of 1855 and 1856, which began when the Nisqually, angered by the Treaty of Medicine Creek and a reservation that cut into their fishing economy, attacked settlers. Afterward Governor Isaac Stevens had the Nisqually chief Leschi tried for the death of Colonel Abram Benton Moses in a skirmish. The Army refused to execute him, considering him a prisoner of war, so the territorial legislature authorized civilian authorities, and Leschi was hanged on February 19, 1858, in present Lakewood. He was exonerated in 2004.

More about Lakewood

The fort was decommissioned in 1868, and in 1871 the territory turned it into an insane asylum, now Western State Hospital, a regional psychiatric hospital. Four original cottages survive as a living museum. Thornewood Castle was also built in the area. The area was long known as Tacoma/Lakewood Center or the Lakes District. Voters rejected incorporation in 1971, 1990 and 1994 before approving it by a 20-point margin on March 14, 1995, and Lakewood became a city on February 28, 1996, the same day as Edgewood, immediately ranking as the second-largest city in Pierce County. Sources Wikipedia: Lakewood, Washington Wikipedia: Fort Steilacoom