Tapping Lake Padden for Fairhaven's Future
Engineers break ground on a massive water infrastructure project designed to support a city of 30,000.
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.
Teams were engaged yesterday distributing the pipe for water mains along the streets and a large force of men were at work excavating the trenches. The Fairhaven Water company was organized October 24th, 1889, with a capital stock of $150,000. The water is to be taken from Lake Padden, a beautiful sheet of water that lies two miles from Fairhaven. The contract to fetch the water to Fairhaven has been let for $60,000, and the water will be running through pipes into Fairhaven in early May, 1890. The water will flow through a steel main of twenty inches in diameter, and distributed through smaller pipes to the residence and manufacturing sections of the city. Lake Padden has an altitude of 240 feet above Fairhaven. Its pure, cold water is stocked with trout, a fact that establishes its purity.
“The citizens of Fairhaven know that their city will speedily contain that number of inhabitants, and looking into the future through clear eyes they have had a survey for a pipe line made.”
This project laid the literal foundations for modern Bellingham's water supply. While the 1890 boosters dreamed of a city of 30,000 (which it eventually surpassed), Lake Padden remains a key municipal resource and park, shifting from a utility site to a cherished recreational space.
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