The Friends of the Hylebos was founded in 1983 as the Wetlands of the West Hylebos (yes, that was the name!). The group was founded by local businesspeople and civic boosters, Franics and Ilene Marckx and their friends, who were concerned about the impact of runaway, unplanned development and its impacts on the West Hylebos Wetlands and Hylebos Creek.

The Marckxes and their friends worked for a decade and a half to preserve the West Hylebos Wetlands, finally seeing success when the Washington State Legislature, in 1987 approved funding to purchase West Hylebos Wetlands' properties (included in the initial park was 23.5 acres of property donated by the Marckxes) and develop a state park.

The park was opened in 1991 as the West Hylebos Wetlands State Park. During this time, the group became the Friends of the Hylebos Wetlands and focused on maintaining the park and protecting it from the impacts of surrounding development.

In 1999, in response to the Endangered Species Act listing of Puget Sound Chinook salmon, the Friends' board expanded the mission to the entire watershed. Ultimately, the Friends couldn't adequately protect the West Hylebos Wetlands without addressing the problems facing the surrounding watershed and the stream that flowed through the wetlands.

In 1999, The Friends hired a Stream Team Coordinator and implemented a very popular stream team program, organizing volunteers to participate in habitat restoration and water quality monitoring. A few months later, in early 2000, Chris Carrel left the board and was hired as the group's first Executive Director. The Friends helped organize watershed-wide stakeholder effforts, such as the Hylebos Watershed Action Committee, to guide salmon conservation efforts. They immersed themselves in the proposed SR 167 highway project, and began to catalyze and organize various preservation and restoration projects.

In 2004, the Friends' assembled its large number of actual and hoped-for conservation projects into a comprehensive watershed strategy, the Hylebos Creek Conservation Initiative. The ultimate goal of the Initiative is to preserve and restore a continuous corridor of stream, wetland and upland habitat from the West Hylebos Wetlands downstream to Commencement Bay. The group, by this time, had developed enough experience with habitat restoration to lead sophisticated projects such as building new stream channels at the West Milton Nature Preserve and implementing a multi-year, revegetation project at the Lower Hylebos Marsh that would involve planting more than 28,000 native trees, plants and emergents.

While the Hylebos Creek Conservation Initiative will keep the Friends busy for many years, the group remains focused on its heart and soul, the West Hylebos Wetlands. After leading an effort to have the park transferred to the city of Federal Way in 2004, the Friends has been working with Federal Way's Parks Department to have the park's aging boardwalk replaced, complete the park's front entrance on S. 348th Street and protect the health of the wetlands' forest ecosystem by combating invasive nonnative weeds and replanting native trees and plants.

With an ambitious watershed conservation agenda ahead, the history of the Hylebos Watershed is yet to be written. You can play an important role in creating a healthy natural legacy for future generations by supporting the Friends with your donation and becoming a volunteer.