The Struggle for Steamship Service at Oak Harbor
When the captain refused to land because the water was too shallow, a determined community built their own way to the deep water.
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.
A couple of weeks since, when on the steamer Libby, Capt. Brannon requested that we should observe the disadvantages of calling at Oak Harbor with the mail. The channel is quite narrow, and the real harbor is not reached until the sand spit is rounded. At high tide, a vessel can come up to the new wharf, but at low water, the flats are bare for some six hundred feet from the shore line. Capt. Brannon had tried several times to send the freight and mail matter ashore at low tide, but the mud was so deep that he was forced to stop one half mile below the sand spit, in the open roadstead, requiring the mail to be carried over a mile to the post office. This detained the steamer a couple of hours. To remedy this, an incorporated company has been formed which owns the wharf and store. They have extended the old wharf from 75 feet to over 200 feet, and by July, they will build a plank walk from the end of the wharf to deep water, where a scow will be anchored. All these things will be completed at a cost of about $2,000 to the community. They are working together harmoniously to ensure the steamer stops, effectively making Oak Harbor the center for all of the eastern and northern part of Whidbey Island.
“They are all there working together harmoniously to do these things and there can be little doubt that they will be accomplished.”
This story of a community self-funding infrastructure to secure vital transit links mirrors the modern-day struggle of small Washington towns fighting for ferry and public transit reliability. It highlights how, then as now, geographic isolation is often solved by local collective investment when larger state or corporate systems deem a stop 'inconvenient.'
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