Fairhaven, Washington

Last updated
Fairhaven Historic District
B'ham Fairhaven 03.jpg
Fairhaven
USA Washington location map.svg
Red pog.svg
LocationRoughly bounded by 10th and 13th Sts., Columbia and Larrabee Aves.
Nearest city Bellingham, Washington
Coordinates 48°43′05″N122°30′25″W / 48.71806°N 122.50694°W / 48.71806; -122.50694 Coordinates: 48°43′05″N122°30′25″W / 48.71806°N 122.50694°W / 48.71806; -122.50694
NRHP reference # 77001363
Added to NRHPAugust 19, 1977

Fairhaven (or the Fairhaven Village) was a settlement in Washington state founded in the late 1880s. In 1903 it became part of the city of Bellingham.

Washington (state) State of the United States of America

Washington, officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Named for George Washington, the first president of the United States, the state was made out of the western part of the Washington Territory, which was ceded by Britain in 1846 in accordance with the Oregon Treaty in the settlement of the Oregon boundary dispute. It was admitted to the Union as the 42nd state in 1889. Olympia is the state capital; the state's largest city is Seattle. Washington is sometimes referred to as Washington State, to distinguish it from Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States, which is often shortened to Washington.

Bellingham, Washington City in Washington, United States

Bellingham is the county seat and most populous city of Whatcom County in the U.S. state of Washington. Located 52 miles southwest of Vancouver, 90 miles north of Seattle, and 21 miles south of the Canada-US border, Bellingham is in between two major metropolitan areas, Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia. The city’s population was 80,885 at the 2010 United States Census. With an April 1, 2018 population estimate of 88,500 per the Washington State Office of Financial Management, Bellingham is the twelfth-most populous city in the state of Washington.

Contents

Description

The Fairhaven area is situated on the south side of Bellingham, [1] and borders Bellingham Bay on the west and Western Washington University on the northeast.

Bellingham Bay

Bellingham Bay is a bay of the Salish Sea located in Washington State in the United States. It is separated from the Strait of Georgia on the west by the Lummi Peninsula, Portage Island, and Lummi Island. It is bordered on the east by Bellingham, Washington, to the south-east by the Chuckanut Mountains, and to the south by Samish Bay. The Nooksack River empties into the bay, as does Whatcom Creek.

Western Washington University university

Western Washington University is a public university in Bellingham, Washington. It is the northernmost university in the contiguous United States and was founded as the state-funded New Whatcom Normal School in 1893, succeeding a private school of teaching for women.

Since 1989 Fairhaven has been the southernmost terminus of the Alaska Marine Highway System, Alaska's state run ferry system. The Bellingham Cruise Terminal is also the departure point for summer passenger ferry service to the San Juan Islands and Victoria, British Columbia, Canada operated by Victoria/San Juan Cruises. Nearby is Fairhaven Station, a small transportation hub which serves as Bellingham's Amtrak Cascades station stop [2] as well as the Greyhound bus depot. [3] Connections can be made to local taxis or local transit. Whatcom Transportation Authority recently upgraded Fairhaven's bus service to every 15 minutes as part of its Red Line. Fairhaven also plays outdoor movies every weekend during the summer at the Pickford Outdoor Cinema in Fairhaven's historical district.

Alaska Marine Highway waterway to Alaska

The Alaska Marine Highway (AMH) or the Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS) is a ferry service operated by the U.S. state of Alaska. It has its headquarters in Ketchikan, Alaska.

San Juan Islands island group in Washington State, USA

The San Juan Islands are an archipelago in the northwest corner of the contiguous United States between the U.S. mainland and Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. The San Juan Islands are part of the U.S. state of Washington.

Victoria, British Columbia Provincial capital city in British Columbia, Canada

Victoria is the capital city of the Canadian province of British Columbia, located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of 85,792, while the metropolitan area of Greater Victoria has a population of 367,770, making it the 15th most populous Canadian metropolitan area. Victoria is the 7th most densely populated city in Canada with 4,405.8 people per square kilometre, which is a greater population density than Toronto.

Historical district

In the center of the Fairhaven area is the Fairhaven Historical District, which features a seasonal farmer's market as well as numerous restaurants and shops. The district is a popular tourist destination. All newly constructed buildings are required to conform in outward appearance to the community's traditional 19th-century style as defined by Bellingham Municipal Code, Design Review District, section 20.26.

History

Fairhaven in 1890 Fairhaven docks, 1890.jpg
Fairhaven in 1890

First arriving in the area in 1854, Daniel J. Harris bought property along the coast and founded the town of Fairhaven in 1883. [4] By 1889, he had sold all his interests to developers such as Nelson Bennett and C. X. Larrabee, who were intent on building Fairhaven into a major city on the scale of Seattle or Tacoma. [5]

Daniel J. Harris early settler of the Bellingham Bay area and founder of the town of Fairhaven, Washington

Daniel Jefferson "Dirty Dan" Harris was an early settler of the Bellingham Bay area and founder of the town of Fairhaven, Washington. Following a stint as a whaler in the Pacific Ocean, Harris arrived in Washington Territory in either 1853 or 1854. After years of trading and buying land surrounding his original homestead, he platted the property into the town of Fairhaven in 1883 and began selling plots for gold. By 1889, Harris sold off his remaining land to Nelson Bennett and C. X. Larrabee, who continued to develop Fairhaven until its incorporation with other Bellingham Bay towns into the city of Bellingham in 1903. Harris retired to Los Angeles where he died in 1890. Residents of Bellingham today celebrate an annual festival in Harris's honor where visitors can learn about the early history of the city.

Nelson Bennett Canadian-American businessman

Nelson Bennett was a Canadian-American railroad magnate who contributed to the growth of Fairhaven and Tacoma, Washington in the late 19th-century. Bennett was president of the Fairhaven and Southern Railroad, which first connected the Bellingham Bay region with the rest of the country.

C. X. Larrabee American businessman

Charles Xavier Larrabee was a 19th-century businessman and a co-founder of the town of Fairhaven, Washington. Later in life, Larrabee and his wife Frances donated much land for civic purposes, including schools and parks, and were considered stewards of the city of Bellingham.

Fairhaven, like many other coastal Washington cities, competed with other Washington cities for the position of terminal city of the Great Northern Railroad, but that title ultimately fell on Seattle. During this period of competitiveness, which lasted from the late 1870s through mid-1880s, Fairhaven adopted its iconic 19th century style and took on an aesthetic appeal to architecture and design. Even after it was decided that Seattle would house the Great Northern Railroad terminal, population and aesthetically-minded construction continued to boom until the late 1890s. Fairhaven was officially incorporated on May 13, 1890. On October 27, 1903, citizens of Fairhaven and citizens of two neighboring cities on Bellingham Bay, Whatcom City and Sehome, voted to consolidate into one city named Bellingham. On December 28, 1903 the new city of Bellingham was officially established. [6]

Fairhaven is also known for its historical ties to salmon canning, and from the late 1800s through to the 1940s was the home of numerous salmon canning operations, employing as many as 4,500 workers in the area. In the 1940s the Pacific American Fisheries was headquartered in Fairhaven, and was known as the largest salmon canning operation in the world. [7]

See also

Related Research Articles

Whatcom County, Washington County in the United States

Whatcom County is a county located in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2010 census, the population was 201,140. It is bordered by Canada on the north, Okanogan County on the east, Skagit County on the south, and the Strait of Georgia on the west. The county seat and largest city is Bellingham.

Lummi Lummi Nation, Lhaqtemish

The Lummi, governed by the Lummi Nation, are a Native American tribe of the Coast Salish ethnolinguistic group in western Washington state in the United States. The federally recognized tribe primarily resides on and around the Lummi Indian Reservation to the west of Bellingham in western Whatcom County, 20 miles (32 km) south of the border with Canada.

King Street Station train station in Seattle, Washington, United States

King Street Station is a train station in Seattle, Washington, United States. Located between South King and South Jackson streets and Second and Fourth Avenues South in the Pioneer Square neighborhood of Seattle, the station is just south of downtown. Built between 1904 and 1906, it served the Great Northern Railway and Northern Pacific Railway from its grand opening on May 10, 1906, until the creation and start of Amtrak on May 1, 1971. The station was designed by the St. Paul, Minnesota architectural firm of Charles A. Reed and Allen H. Stem, who were later associate designers for the New York Central Railroad's Grand Central Terminal in New York City. King Street Station was Seattle's primary train terminal until the construction of the adjacent Oregon & Washington Depot, later named Union Station, in 1911. King Street Station was added to the National Register of Historic Places and the Washington Heritage Register in 1973.

Bellingham International Airport airport in Bellingham, Washington, United States

Bellingham International Airport is three miles (5 km) northwest of Bellingham, in Whatcom County, Washington, and the third-largest commercial airport in Washington. BLI covers 2,190 acres of land.

Pacific Central Station railway station in Vancouver, Canada

Pacific Central Station in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada is a railway station which acts as the western terminus of Via Rail's cross-country The Canadian to Toronto and the northern terminus of Amtrak’s Cascades to Seattle and Portland. The station also provides intercity coach service, being the head office and bus depot of Pacific Coach Lines and the main Vancouver terminal for Greyhound Bus Lines. The station is wheelchair-accessible and is staffed with full Via services.

Bellingham School District

Bellingham School District No. 501 is a public school district in Whatcom County, Washington, United States that serves the city of Bellingham.

Washington State Route 11 highway in Washington

State Route 11 (SR 11) is a 21.28-mile (34.25 km) long state highway that serves Skagit and Whatcom counties in the U.S. state of Washington. SR 11, known as Chuckanut Drive, begins at an interchange with Interstate 5 (I-5) north of Burlington and continues northwest through several small towns and the Chuckanut Mountains to the Fairhaven district of Bellingham, where the highway turns east and ends again at I-5.

<i>The Bellingham Herald</i> newspaper in Bellingham, Washington

The Bellingham Herald is a daily newspaper published in Bellingham, Washington, in the United States. It is currently owned by The McClatchy Company.

NOAAS <i>John N. Cobb</i>

NOAA Ship John N. Cobb was a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research vessel in commission from 1970 to 2008. She was named for John Nathan Cobb and was the oldest commissioned ship in the NOAA fleet when she was decommissioned, having previously served in the United States Department of the Interior′s Fish and Wildlife Service from 1950 to 1956 and in the United States Fish and Wildlife Service′s Bureau of Commercial Fisheries from 1956 to 1970 as R/V John N. Cobb.

Fairhaven Station Amtrak station in the Washington city

Fairhaven Station, also called Bellingham, is a train station serving Amtrak's Cascades route, as well as a bus station serving Greyhound Lines and local Whatcom Transportation Authority buses, in Bellingham, Washington, United States. Built in 1995, the station is located near the Bellingham Cruise Terminal, the southern connection for the Alaska Marine Highway. Water Taxi services and seasonal whale watching excursions also provide connections from the Bellingham Cruise Terminal to the San Juan Islands.

The Bellingham Public Library is a public library system serving Bellingham, Washington, US. It maintains three libraries, one in the Civic Center of downtown Bellingham, one in Fairhaven, and one in Barkley Village. The system is independent of the Whatcom County Library System, serving the entire county, but has a reciprocal borrowing agreement.

The history of Bellingham, Washington, as it is now known, begins with the settling of Whatcom County in the mid-to-late 19th century.

Whatcom Museum

The Whatcom Museum was originally built in 1892 as the city hall for the former town of New Whatcom, before it was joined with surrounding towns to form Bellingham, Washington. The building was designed in a Late Victorian style by Alfred Lee, a local architect, who used red brick and Chuckanut Sandstone for its construction. The design itself was an almost exact replica of the second Saginaw County Courthouse in Saginaw, Michigan, Designed by Fred W. Hollister.

Fairhaven and Southern Railroad

The Fairhaven and Southern Railroad was a railroad located in the northwest part of Washington State built by the Fairhaven Land Co., founded by E. M. Wilson, E. L. Cowgill, Nelson Bennett, C. X. Larrabee, and Samuel E. Larrabee.

Whatcom Chief

The Whatcom Chief is a ferry in Washington State, United States. The ferry carries both pedestrians and vehicles to Lummi Island from Gooseberry Point west of Bellingham, Washington.

MV Plover

MV Plover is an 11-ton, 17-passenger ferry in Whatcom County, Washington, built in 1944, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997. She is owned by the City of Blaine, Washington and operated by the nonprofit Drayton Harbor Maritime. She originally ferried workers from Blaine to the Alaska Packers' Association cannery at Semiahmoo Spit, carrying out this function until 1964. She was restored by volunteers of Whatcom Maritime Historical Society, and now carries passengers during the summer months from the Blaine harbor dock across Drayton Harbor to the resort dock. At approximately 1 kilometer, this is claimed to be the shortest ferry run in Washington. She is the second oldest operating foot passenger ferry in Washington, next to Kitsap Transit's Carlisle II which was built in Bellingham 27 years earlier, in 1917.

The Interurban Trail is a rail trail in Whatcom County, Washington. It runs 6.6 miles (10.6 km) between Fairhaven and Larrabee State Park (48°38′52″N122°29′12″W) in the Bellingham area. Popular with hikers and bicycles, the trail runs parallel to Chuckanut Drive though the Chuckanut Mountains. The trail follows the shoreline of the Salish Sea and Puget Sound, with ample views of Bellingham Bay, the Lummi Peninsula, Portage Island, Lummi Island, Chuckanut Bay and the distant San Juan Islands.

References

  1. ↑ "About Fairhaven.com". fairhaven.com. Ben Kinney. Archived from the original on 2015-08-13. Retrieved 29 Aug 2015.
  2. ↑ "Bellingham, WA (BEL)". Amtrak.com. Amtrak . Retrieved 29 Aug 2015.
  3. ↑ "Historic Fairhaven District". bellingham.org. Bellingham Whatcom County Tourism. Retrieved 29 Aug 2015.
  4. ↑ Bourasaw, Noel V. (March 31, 2011). "Introduction to legends of Daniel J. Harris, his character and accomplishments as founder of Fairhaven". Skagit River Journal of History & Folklore. Retrieved April 18, 2017.
  5. ↑ "Fairhaven". Bellingham's Centennial: Exploring the Foundations of Our Community. Retrieved April 18, 2017.
  6. ↑ "Fairhaven Historic District". cob.org. City of Bellingham . Retrieved 29 Aug 2015.
  7. ↑ "Fairhaven as headquarters for Pacific American Fisheries". portofbellingham.com. Retrieved 2018-10-29.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.