Gig Harbor was an unincorporated area in 1931, with an active fleet of fishing vessels, a small boat building operation with ship chandleries, and a modest lumber mill. About a thousand residents were spread throughout the area, most who manned the boats were of Yugoslavian extraction and most who tended the mercantile were of Scandinavian heritage. There was no central water supply, there was no sewer system, and the village had been "electrified" only five years before. There was no town council, no planning commission, no business association, or any other "civic" or governmental organizations -in fact, Gig Harbor was not incorporated as a city until fifteen years later. Volunteers performed all community functions, plus police or fire security. The principa1 transportation with the "outside world " was by a ferry to Tacoma and other boats that frequented the dock.

The Gig Harbor Lions Club was organized on September 3, 1931 and chartered on October 23, 1931 to serve the peninsula community. Gathered within the old community hall in north Gig Harbor at the intersection of North Harborview and Vernhardson were twenty-five charter members. Bremerton-Central, chartered in 1925 as the oldest Lions Club on the western shores of Puget Sound, was the sponsoring club. Thus Gig Harbor Lions became the second oldest club in the District, and the eighteenth oldest in the international Multiple District 19. To commemorate the occasion, Bremerton-Central presented Gig Harbor with an inscribed gong which is still used to this day. Lion Reuben H. Berkheimer was installed as the Charter President.