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Shaw Island




Shaw Island is the smallest of the San Juan Islands served by the Washington State Ferries . The island has a small year-round population, with only a slight increase during tourist season. Not all of the ferry system's San Juan runs stop there. The Wilkes Expedition , in 1841, named the island after John Shaw , a Naval officer.

Shaw is unique, among those islands served by the state ferries, in having virtually no commercial or tourist-oriented facilities other than two smallish parks, most of the island being privately owned by people who like their privacy. Road s are mostly inland and afford little access to, or even views of, the shoreline. There are 11.5 miles of seal-coated and 2.37 miles of Gravel public roads on Shaw. The primary roads are three loops in the interior of the island, with branches to the ferry dock, a county park, Neck Point, and Broken Point, plus a few other minor ones.

For more than two decades, one of the unique things about Shaw was that three --who run a Monastery , Our Lady of the Rock--and the Sisters Of Mercy . In late 2003 , the Franciscans announced plans to sell the store, including the adjacent small marina, and leave the island. As expected, the sale (to a couple that has lived on Shaw since 1977 ) closed by June 2004 .

Shaw has a one-room schoolhouse (a room was recently added to serve as a , Orcas , or San Juan . Shaw is also home to a small Library and a small Museum .

Shaw Island was featured during the fifth season of the political drama '' The West Wing '' as the site of a standoff between terrorist suspects and the US government, similar to the Waco, Texas Branch Davidian standoff.


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