The Story of Davis Resilience Grounds

Davis Resilience Grounds is a 102-acre landscape layered with history.

The land has been in the Davis family since 1945. When Bob and Gloria Davis first acquired it, much of the property was stump land — the remains of earlier logging. Only a small portion was cleared. The rest was brush, scattered timber, and forest.

The first parcel was a nine-acre piece purchased from Mrs. Westfall — the land where the house now stands. Over the following years, additional acreage was added, eventually bringing the property to just over 100 acres. It was never cleared all at once. It was an ongoing process.

Brush was cut. Piles were burned. Stumps were broken up and burned again. Sections were planted and seeded. What began as rough ground slowly became pasture.

By the late 1940s, the first part of the dairy barn was built. Through the 1950s and 60s, the dairy operation expanded: stanchions were added, a milk house was built when bulk shipping became required, and pasture was improved. The flat ground supported alfalfa. The surrounding land was worked primarily for grazing.

Nothing on the land changed suddenly. Every addition — barn, fence line, cleared field — came incrementally, responding to need.

The gravel chapter began the same way.

The property sits atop an ancient glacial deposit left by Ice Age movement — a field of gravel formed long before settlement. There had always been a small pit. Neighbors would come for a few loads. Bob purchased a small dump truck for farm use. A loader was added. What began as occasional hauling of pit run gradually evolved into a small surface mining operation.

By the late 1960s, the gravel business had grown enough that the dairy cows were sold. The land transitioned again — not through abandonment, but adaptation.

Over time, the mine expanded to approximately 42 acres within the larger property. Yet as the industrial footprint grew, so did the commitment to reclamation and responsible management.

In the 1990s, Davis Sand and Gravel received multiple reclamation awards for reforesting and restoring portions of extracted land. Disturbed ground was reshaped and replanted. What was taken was followed by restoration.

The remaining acreage — roughly 60 acres — remained farm and forest. Portions were thinned selectively over the decades, never fully clear-cut. In the 1980s, forest management became more intentional, with thinning practices designed for long-term health rather than short-term harvest.

Wildlife never left the property. Elk move through the fields. Black bears pass quietly at the edges of forest. Trumpeter swans rest during migration.

In 2023, the family permanently protected the agricultural acreage under the North Olympic Land Trust, ensuring that farmland would remain farmland in perpetuity. Forest lands were designated accordingly.

This land has shifted forms across generations:

Forest.
Pasture.
Gravel.
Reclaimed woodland.

Now, in 2026, it enters its next transition.

Davis Resilience Grounds is the framework guiding that transition.

The same glacial field that once supplied gravel now sits adjacent to regional electrical infrastructure. The industrial footprint created over decades presents an opportunity — not to erase agriculture or forest — but to integrate energy resilience into land that has already carried industry.

The goal is not reinvention.

It is continuation.

Energy resilience for Clallam County and neighboring tribal nations.
Agricultural permanence.
Thoughtful land stewardship.
Infrastructure integrated with landscape.

The ethic remains the same as it was from the beginning:

Work the land carefully.
Adapt when necessary.
Leave it stable for the next generation.