The Cove Dock was built in 1902, and in 1904 E.O. Rindal built the Cove Store, now popularly called the Cove Motel. It was a typical waterfront community store that sold everything from groceries and dry goods to harnesses and shoes. The store was also the post office, and the Cove Post Office was located there until it closed in 1956.

The photo of the Cove Dock and store was taken in 1911 when the population of Cove was about 200, according to the community directory. This was a year after the island’s first midwife, Maren Hammer, moved to Cove and began delivering babies.

Cove was one of the Mosquito Fleet stops along the West Passage. The steamers coming from Tacoma would leave Lisabuela, cross over to Olalla on the Kitsap Peninsula, cross back to Cove, and then cross back over to Fragaria, before returning to Vashon at Colvos. They would then head north to the other west side Vashon docks at Sylvan Beach and Biloxi before going on to Seattle. Islander Tom Lorentzen recalls waiting as a boy until he heard the whistle of the Virginia V leaving the Cove Dock. Then he would take off running north from his house near the Colvos Y to the Colvos Dock, and by the time the steamer had crossed over to Fragaria and returned to Colvos, he and his friends would be there waiting to catch the boat to Seattle.

In 1916, Pete Petersen took over the store and installed a large grinding mill to produce flour and to mix feed for livestock. Through the 1920s and 1930s, the store continued to serve the community, but when the Mosquito Fleet steamer Virginia V stopped making runs in the late 1930s, and as Vashon Town emerged as the island commercial center, the store closed just before World War II.

After the war, Harry Larsen started Larsen Boats when he leased the former store and began making 14-foot fishing skiffs for the Point Defiance boathouse. Harry had worked for Walls & Walls Boat Works at Colvos until a fire forced them to close in the late 1940s and gave Larsen his opportunity to open his own business. In the early 1950s, Larsen purchased a building at Burton, remodeled it into a boat yard, installed a dock and opened Larsen Marina. He developed a unique tri-conic hull design and began building plywood runabouts he named Skippercraft. Skippercrafts were among the finest small boats built in the area, and at its peak Larson Marina produced over one boat a day.

After Larsen boats moved to Burton, the owners of the Cove Store building developed plans for a marina, a large hotel resort complex with a restaurant, cocktail lounge and building lots for residential development. When the cross-sound bridge was canceled and the Boeing Bust slowed development of the island and in the region, the plans were dropped, although the developers had already been granted permits to dredge the area and build the marina.

Now, the former Cove Store is a residential apartment building. The 2008 photograph (home page teaser), was taken when shingles covering the building were removed during a remodel, revealing the original siding and the name Cove Store.