A quiet community on the hillside on the northeast shore of Lake Washington overlooking the lake, it was once devoted almost entirely to shipbuilding. The Lake Washington Shipyards and drydock was a center for construction and repair of both Puget Sound and lake boats, and, during early spring, whaling vessels were prepared for the summer’s work. Here the ferryboat Kalakala was remade with an all-weld superstructure. This plant pioneered all-weld ship construction with the Paramount in 1937, and the first of the kind constructed on the Pacific Coast, the Northland, was built here in 1929. Houghton is currently incorporated as part of Kirkland and the former shipyards site is now home to the Carillon Point Business Park.

One source has it that it was named for James Leland and Willard Houghton, early loggers who started their operations in 1889. Another source notes that Sarah Jane Houghton of Boston donated a bell for the First Church of Christ built there in 1890. William Stevens and Sarah Jane Houghton were benefactors of “…many educational and spiritual causes including the gift of the Houghton Memorial Chapel at Wellesley College.”