In 1880, it was given the name of Goldendale by a local resident named Munson. When he found the same name on a town in Klickitat County, he switched to the present name.
A large rambling building, once a hotel, a number of abandoned stores, and several weathered houses date back to the late nineteenth century, when transportation on the peninsula was still almost entirely by water. By the 1940s, Silverdale was an important receiving station for the Washington Co-operative Egg and Poultry Association. Today Silverdale has grown into a commercial center in Kitsap County and its small-town context has been lost to recent development.