Fairhaven Objects to Whatcom Annexation Over Debt
Booster leaders argue that merging with Whatcom would be 'death' to Fairhaven’s budding identity and prosperity.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
There is much talk in Whatcom and Sehome of incorporating Bellingham and Fairhaven with those two places, to which Fairhaven and Bellingham object most strenuously for numerous good reasons. In the first place, the territory thus to be incorporated would be altogether too much for the present. Fairhaven is not ready to die, but on the contrary intends to live in the liveliest manner. The attempt to annex Bellingham is nothing on earth but a piece of spite work on the part of Whatcom. Another objection to incorporating Fairhaven and Bellingham with Whatcom is that that place has a debt which Fairhaven and Bellingham would be expected to bear a proportion of without any benefit therefrom. Moreover, the consolidation would simply make Fairhaven a dependence upon a community which is already bitter against the advancement of Fairhaven. Fairhaven is the home of enterprising, pushing, public-spirited people with capital, and they are here to build a city of their own.
“The attempt to annex Bellingham is nothing on earth but a piece of spite work on the part of Whatcom.”
This civic turf war reflects the early, cutthroat competition between the distinct municipalities that eventually became the modern city of Bellingham. The anxiety about consolidation and the resentment toward 'Whatcom's' debt mirrors the regional identity conflicts and annexation debates that still periodically bubble up in growing Washington urban corridors.
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