The Boom Town on the Skagit
As La Conner transformed into a bustling grain-shipping hub, new docks and storefronts sprouted along the Swinomish Slough to accommodate the region's agricultural explosion.
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.
Agricultural improvements are perhaps the surest and most certain measures of permanent wealth and prosperity. A few years ago, no part of the Sound country presented a more dreary aspect than the marshy sea-grass and tide-flats around the mouth of the Skagit. The small prairies of Whidbey Island were then considered to be the cream of the Puget Sound country. However, the energy consequent on the diking and cultivation of these marshes is today rapidly making them the wealthiest and most productive agricultural settlements on the coast.
Approaching the docks on a steamer, one cannot but notice the numerous and valuable improvements along the front of the town, and on the banks of the Swinomish Slough. The two large dealers in general merchandise, L.L. Andrews and G.E. Catches, each occupy the new wharf house built the past year. G.E. Catches has a new store, 24x60 feet, a completed and fine shop. A frontage of some 50 feet has been made from the wharf of Catches to A.E. Dunning, 62 feet beyond. This is in turn to be even with the Catches wharf, running in all a wharf frontage of some 400 feet. On the north end of this new wharf, J.F. Dunlap has a new furniture store, 24x36 feet on the ground. The upper story is a workshop, the lower is a show room. He is a good businessman and will do well there at his business.
“The small prairies of Whidbey Island were then considered to be the cream of the Puget Sound country... the energy consequent on the diking and cultivation of these marshes is today rapidly making them the wealthiest and most productive agricultural settlements on the coast.”
The late 19th-century transformation of Skagit County wetlands into prime farmland remains one of the most significant environmental and economic shifts in Pacific Northwest history. Today, as La Conner grapples with modern environmental challenges like rising sea levels and the maintenance of those same historic dikes, this account offers a window into the era of 'taming' the landscape for commerce.
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