After almost 40 years of running Grays Harbor Title Company, Mike Melville, former vice president and regional manager of Grays Harbor Title Company; Pacific Title Company and Pacific County Title Company, has turned the reins over to Jon M. Melville.

John Melville has been working for 15 years and it is finally time for the transition, assuring stability and continued service to the local title industry. The transition has been carefully planned and accomplished effective Oct. 1, 2016. Jon, together with his staff, is poised to continue the company’s existence for what hopefully will be numerous future decades.

The title company can indirectly take its origins back past the early 1900s, when it was known as Grays Harbor Abstract Co., under the management of D.W. Fleet. Then located in Montesano, on the S.E. corner of present Fleet Park, Grays Harbor Abstract boasted the oldest set of abstract books in what was then Chehalis County.

Around 1927, the firm’s name was changed to Grays Harbor Title Co. and ran its business out of its office on First Street South in Montesano, with a branch office in Aberdeen. The company was later located upstairs in the old Aberdeen Federal building and in 1973 moved to the present location on the corner of Market and Broadway. In 1990, a new building was built on the corner of Market and “L” in what was formerly Bigelow Chevrolet.