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Thomas Theobald Aldwell, born in Toronto on June 14, 1868, was trained as a banker and became a public official, businessman, power company executive, and civic leader. He moved to Port Angeles, Washington, in 1890 and eventually made a fair amount of money in real estate there, both through his own purchases and as a realtor. Aldwell was active in politics between 1894 and 1908, serving as Clallam County auditor, deputy customs collector, and chairman of the Clallam County Republican Party. He left politics in 1908 to pursue his real dream, the building of the Elwha Dam. Aldwell and his partners had slowly acquired many acres of land along the Elwha River, enough to accommodate a dam and the flooding it would cause. They formed the Olympic Power and Development Company and successfully raised the money for the dam, which was completed in 1913. The dam provided power to Port Angeles, Port Townsend, and the Bremerton Navy Yard.

Aldwell directed several other industrial development projects. As president of the Port Angeles Chamber of Commerce, he convinced local businessmen to raise money to help pulp mills locate in the city after the construction of the dam. Aldwell and other leaders of the chamber of commerce later formed a port district. The voters elected Aldwell the district’s first port commissioner; he served from 1924 to 1932. Under Aldwell’s leadership the port district built a sea-wall that expanded the port and provided room for a plywood company to settle along the waterfront. After the creation of Olympic National Park in 1938, Aldwell was a leader in the fight to return some of the park’s land to the national forests to guarantee the region’s pulp mills a larger supply of trees. At age 82 he published his autobiography, Conquering the Last Frontier. He died four years later in 1954.