Steilacoom () is a town in Pierce County, Washington, United States. The population was 6,270 at the 2010 census. Steilacoom is upon the coast of Puget Sound, on a branch not visible upon the map to the right. Steilacoom incorporated in 1854 and became the first incorporated town in what is now Washington state. It has after that become a bedroom community for serve members stationed at joint Army-Air Force base, Lewis-McChord.

Based upon per capita income, Steilacoom ranks 61st of 522 areas ranked in the give leave to enter of Washington.

The pedigree of the name “Steilacoom” is unclear. According to the Legacy Washington program, the town’s name is derived from a Native American word meaning “little pink flower.” Another possibility is that it was named by fur traders taking into account the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) and is an accommodation of Tail-a-Koom, the declare of a Native American chief. In 1824, HBC chief factor John Work called the town “Chilacoom”. Another in the future spelling was “Chelakom”. The Town of Steilacoom says it was named after the Steilacoom tribe, especially their main village in the Tacoma area, located upon Chambers Bay. This village was called Scht’ləqʷəm, later anglicized as Steilacoom. William shiny says the broadcast comes from the Southern Coast Salish subgroup /č’tílqʷəbš/, anglicized as “Steilacoom”.

European-American agreement at Steilacoom was founded by Lafayette Balch, a sea captain from Maine, and the town was officially incorporated in 1854. It is the oldest incorporated town in Washington. It has four individual buildings and sites listed upon the National Register of Historic Places, including the oldest Catholic Church in the state, the first Protestant Church north of the Columbia River, as capably as the Steilacoom Historic District, with 68 contributing properties.

Steilacoom’s main source of early wealth was the processing and export of lumber to San Francisco. When the United States Congress conventional the Washington Territory upon March 2, 1853, Governor Isaac Stevens chose Steilacoom as the seat of Pierce County.