BUCODA

Seatco prison

In the late 1870s, Oliver Shead and sheriffs of Pierce and Thurston counties proposed Seatco to be a site of a Washington Territory prison. The institution was to be privately operated and constructed by prisoners; sheriffs at the time received additional wages if prisoners under their watch were engaged in labor. Accepted by the territorial legislature in 1877, the facility was Washington's first prison. The jail opened in mid-1878 and was a wooden, two-story structure with a basement, measuring 40 ft × 100 ft (12 m × 30 m). Cells were located on the first floor and female prisoners were kept separately from the general population; solitary confinement was located in the basement.

The jail garnered a reputation as a harsh institution as the inmates, some shackled for years, were used for dangerous and brutal manual labor in local industry. After the Washington State Penitentiary prison was built in Walla Walla, prisoners began to be transferred out of Seatco Prison in 1887. The jail was supposed to close in 1888 but was last used for inmates in 1890. Over 300 prisoners are recorded to have been incarcerated at Seatco prison.

The structure burned down in 1907; a dock was built on the site by a lumber company. The grounds burned again in the 1940s and remnants of the prison were rediscovered in 1974. The Seatco Prison Site was listed to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

20th century

After two prior attempts were unsuccessful, Bucoda was officially incorporated on June 7, 1910. The first mayor was Emil Krupp. Boundary and signature concerns led to the failed efforts, but the issue of Thurston County becoming a dry county in 1909 is considered to be a reason for the early failures. Bucoda at the time had four saloon establishments and residents were more inclined to a "controlled approach to prohibition". Lumber production in the town, led by the Mutual Lumber Mill, was so productive that Bucoda was once billed as "The Little Town with the Million Dollar Payroll".

The Mutual Mill burned down in 1912 and was rebuilt in 1919; demand waned and production ceased in the 1930s, with a brief reopening into the 1940s. Another mill was begun and lasted into the mid-1950s when it was lost to another fire. The Mutual Mill water tower remained until the early 1980s.

21st century

A federal bill signed in January 2025 authorized the renaming of the town's post office to the Mayor Rob Gordon Post Office. Gordon, who died of cancer the prior summer, had long been a resident and public servant in Bucoda, working in the fire department and on the town council. A dedication ceremony, and the unveiling of a plaque, was held in August 2025, attended by U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez.