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· collected 2026-08-20 · by TOI World Desk
Robert Moran, former mayor of Seattle and shipbuilding magnate was told in 1905, that he only had a few months to live.
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he → tell → months
Resolved to spend his last days peacefully, he sold his business interests for $3.5 million ($126 million in 2025) and moved to Orcas Island where he eventually acquired about 7,000 acres of forest.
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he → resolve → forest
Eventually, he gave away part of the land as a park and outlived the predictions, as per a report by HistoryLink.org.
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he → give → HistoryLink.org
Life in the beginning
Around 1910, Moran offered to donate a vast tract of land on the island to the State of Washington.
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Moran → offer → Washington
Moran arrived in Seattle in 1875 with only a dime in his pocket.
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Moran → arrive → pocket
He began his new life by negotiating credit for breakfast.
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He → begin → breakfast
Slowly but strongly, he worked his way up and learned from mentors in the shipping business.
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he → work → business
In 1879, he was hired as chief engineer on the Cassiar for the steamer's Alaska run, where he stayed for three years.
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he → hire → years
During this time, Moran became friends with naturalist John Muir, meeting him when he was a guest onboard the ship for a journey to study Southeast Alaska and Glacier Bay.
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he → become → Alaska
Muir's approach to nature and spirituality fascinated Moran, and this contact with Muir is credited as the beginning of his interest in land preservation.
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contact → fascinate → preservation
Eventually, Moran went on to found and manage a major shipbuilding firm and was also elected as the Mayor of Seattle in 1888.
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Moran → go → 1888
In 1906, he was diagnosed with cardiac disease, which he blamed on the stresses of his lifestyle.
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he → diagnose → lifestyle
He was told by medical experts that he only had a few months to live and in order to regain his health, he retired, sold his company and moved to Orcas Island.
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he → tell → Island
With considerable wealth at his disposal, he began building an estate and acquiring land.
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he → begin → land
Beginning with a sawmill on the shore of East Sound at the outlet of Cascade Lake, he eventually acquired property from the shore nearly to the summit of Mount Constitution.
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he → begin → Constitution
His purchases included three out of the four original homesteads, the Northern Pacific Land Grant lands and many of the holdings that began as Cash Entry patents.
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that → include → patents
560 acres of Cash Entry patents had been obtained by his relatives, including his brother John, sister Annie and three nieces.
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acres → obtain → brother
In total, he acquired about 7,000 acres of forest, lakes and saltwater shoreline.
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he → acquire → forest
Donating the land
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Donating → donate → land
Around 1910, Moran offered to donate a vast tract of land on the island to the State of Washington.
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Moran → offer → Washington
It was thought that the state's first state park would soon be established on Moran's property.
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park → think → property
Having frustrated the predictions of his demise, he invited University of Washington history professor and The Mountaineers member Edmond Meany (1862-1935) to visit him at Rosario, the maritime-inspired Arts and Crafts mansion he built on the shores of East Sound.
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he → frustrate → Sound
Firmly wedded to the notion that nature was a place for physical and spiritual rejuvenation, Moran told Meany he wanted to donate his land as a park for the people of Washington.
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he → wed → Washington
In autumn 1912, Meany and Moran convinced a delegation of state legislators and university administrators to come to Orcas and assess the park potential of Moran’s holdings.
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Meany → convince → holdings
Although the group was impressed, state Sen. Ralph Nichols told Moran there was no obvious agency in state government to accept, much less manage such a park.
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Nichols → impress → park
Moran kept trying, inviting the editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer to visit Orcas and lobbying the district’s state representative, V. J. Capron, to introduce legislation to create a state agency for parks.
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Moran → keep → parks
In 1913, Capron sponsored a bill, successfully creating a State Board of Park Commissioners, composed of the governor, secretary of state, state land commissioner, state auditor, state treasurer, and one other person appointed by the governor.
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Capron → sponsor → governor
Now Washington had a State Park Board, but the group only had authority to accept donations of land for parks and to recommend the purchase or condemnation of land for parks by the state legislature.
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group → have → legislature
It was enough to get started, though, and in 1915 the State Park Board accepted its first two donations of small properties.
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Board → get → properties
Moran's bid was ensnared in red tape while two smaller properties – one in Whatcom County, one in Lewis County – were donated to the state and approved as state parks in 1915.
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properties → ensnare → 1915
The first was Larrabee State Park, created after Frances Larrabee donated 20 acres of land in the Chuckanut Mountains near Bellingham.
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Larrabee → create → Bellingham
The second was the Jackson House near Chehalis; built in 1850, the building had served as a post office, general store, tavern, hotel, and courthouse.
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building → build → office
In 1852, settlers met there and voted to petition Congress to create Washington Territory.
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settlers → meet → Territory
On June 18, 2021, Washington State Parks celebrated Moran State Park’s 100th birthday
It took another six years before the state would accept Moran’s donation, and only then after the legislature expanded the park board’s powers.
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legislature → celebrate → powers
Renamed the State Parks Committee and given a $50,000 appropriation, it could now acquire new parks, provide camping, and contract with concessioners to raise funds.
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it → rename → funds
The system quickly expanded from the initial 20-odd acres to more than 5,500 acres by September 1922, including nearly 2,700 on Orcas Island donated by Robert Moran and named Moran State Park.
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system → expand → Moran
Moran donated additional parcels in 1925 and 1926, and the State Parks Committee purchased or accepted donations from others, including 80 acres at the summit of Mount Constitution in 1927.
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Committee → donate → 1927
An inholding, private land surrounded by park lands, of 320 acres including much of the Mount Constitution Road was acquired by court-approved condemnation in 1932, allowing work to proceed on $40,000 worth of “engineering, construction, betterment” of the road approved by the state legislature in 1931.
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work → surround → 1931
Robert Moran stayed involved in the park for the rest of his life and commented in his autobiography that “after the State's acceptance of the gift, I built miles of roads and trails, including bridges, arches, and other improvements at my own cost.
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I → stay → cost
This State playground is, in my judgment, the State's finest nature spot, to be enjoyed by posterity to the end of time.”
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playground → enjoy → time
…and 1 more, not listed.
