Here is a little section about the history of Chambers Creek Hatchery that I cut and pasted from Bruce Crawford's 1979 report:


"The Chambers Creek Hatchery was built in 1915 with $5,500 received from the City of Tacoma in lieu of a fishway around their dam on the Nisqually River. Chambers Creek was chosen because it had an excellent salmon run (WDFG, 1917). In its first year of operation Chambers Creek reared chinook, chum, and coho salmon. By 1917, Lake Crescent cutthroat, Lake Chelan cutthroat, and Kokanee were being reared in addition to salmon. This continued as both a salmon and trout facility until 1921 when the Department of Fisheries and Game was separated into the Division of Fisheries and the Division of Game and Game Fish. At that time, Chambers Creek was assigned to the Division of Game and Game Fish and thereby became a trout hatchery (WDFG, 1923). In 1921, Chambers Creek hatched eggs from Chelan cutthroat, eastern brooktrout, Kokanee, and rainbow trout. Rainbow trout were obtained from Packwood Lake and this remained the chief source of eggs until 1935. In 1934, the Department built a new hatchery building and raceways at a large spring located at the Steilacoom State Game Farm about one mile from Chambers Creek. This spring provided 6,000 gallons per minute at a temperature of 56° F. The Steilacoom Game Farm was obtained in 1921 by the Division of Game and Game Fish. The new buildings were renamed the South Tacoma Hatchery, and the old Chambers Creek Hatchery was sold. However, a trap continued to be used in Chambers Creek for the capture of winter steelhead."

According to Crawford's report the "origin" of the hatchery stock would have been from Chambers Creek unless of course managers later decided to stop taking any eggs from fish returning to the hatchery. I doubt that they would have done that, simply because they were there and available. If you look at the history of most hatcheries in the US, it was common practice to ship in eggs or fish from other places so I suspect that Curt is right about it becoming a composite of a number of different populations.

I didn't know until reading this that the hatchery was built as mitigation for a Tacoma City Light dam on the Nisqually River.


Citation: Crawford, B. A. 1979. The origin and history of the trout brood stocks of the Washington Department of Game. Washington State Game Dep., Fishery Research Report, 76 p. (Available from Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, 600 Capital Way N., Olympia, WA 98501.)