Visiting the town of Wilkeson feels special because it is. In addition to a rich and winding history set at the base of Mount Rainier (fun fact: sandstone for the Washington State Capitol building in Olympia was quarried in Wilkeson), it is downright charming with its Welcome to Wilkeson sign and restored historic buildings.
If you are as lucky as my partner in crime and strategy, Angie, and I were to hang out at the local spot, the Carlson Block, with Jayme Peloli on a Friday night in November, you would completely understand why.
Jayme reached out to SiteCrafting after doing what she reports was three seconds of research to discuss the potential of building a website for her nonprofit the Wilkeson Historical District. Our first in‑office meeting was a download of the expansive work she has done since the Fairfax Bridge closure on April 14, 2025, in an effort to save the town and hold WSDOT accountable for years of deferred maintenance that led to its shutdown.
She is a fifth‑generation Wilkeson resident and, as if that is not enough, she is also the town’s mayor. She describes her nonprofit as her life’s work. Standing in the building she is renovating, which was once her great-grandparents’ grocery store, it is easy to see how deeply her roots run in this town and how personal her mission to preserve its story is.
SiteCrafting is a full‑service web design agency and one of the largest in the South Puget Sound, which is meaningful if you look at our staff count. Half of our team are back-end and front-end developers. What’s more, we do it all in-house. That matters because a website is never just a set of pages. Every website is a living, breathing representation of the people, the mission, and the community it serves. When you do all the work in-house, from strategy, research and design, to development and implementation, you are not just creating a product — you are shaping the way a community communicates, how a town tells its story, and how people experience that story every day.
Websites carry the weight of a brand, the credibility of a mission and the connection to the people it serves. When a website succeeds, it is more than a website. It is a bridge, a platform and in cases like Wilkeson, a way to help preserve a community’s history and future.
The Wilkeson Historical District website launched in December 2025 while historic rainfall hit our region. In a pre-launch meeting Jayme was breaking from filling sandbags with the town residents. The Carlson Block’s Instagram stories showed residents working together to fill sandbags and offered a free dinner to all who helped with the effort.
The Wilkeson Historical District Facebook post announcing the launch read “Today feels like a fitting day to share this news, after seeing firsthand what community truly looks like.”
The launch of the Wilkeson Historical District website is a clear example. Small but mighty, it captures the spirit of the town and the determination of its residents to thrive despite the bridge closure. It is more than a website. It is a statement, a tool for connection, a way for the town to share its story for generations to come and a pathway to reopen access to public lands.
