Keyword(s): Lynn Weber/Roochvarg
In 1909, the island residents of San Juan County in Northwest Washington relied on their two newspapers, the San Juan Islander and the Friday Harbor Journal, to keep them apprised not only of local, r...
Stephen Boyce moved to San Juan Island in 1860 and, over the next half-century, farmed there, raised a large family, and became a much-respected pioneer settler and community leader. As a youngster in...
For residents of the San Juan Islands in the late nineteenth century, receiving and sending mail and parcels offered special challenges of distance and isolation. It might be months before a letter po...
Perhaps no one in the early twentieth century brought more innovation and wide-ranging interests to the San Juan Islands than Dr. Victor J. Capron, who in his time there was a physician, farm owner, b...
In the late nineteenth century a few Chinese immigrants found work in the San Juan Islands in domestic service, on farms, or in mining and logging camps, but most Chinese laborers came to the islands ...
Establishing a water system for the residents of Friday Harbor on San Juan Island was a topic of discussion as soon as the town was incorporated in 1909, but it took five years to complete a system. S...
James (Jim) Crook was only a toddler when he arrived on San Juan Island with his family, who had come to homestead property previously occupied by British Royal Marines during a dispute between Britai...
No region of Washington was spared the crippling effects of the Great Depression that overshadowed the country in the 1930s, but the residents of San Juan County in Northwest Washington had some advan...
From the earliest days of non-Native settlement on San Juan Island (located in the Salish Sea between the Washington mainland and Vancouver Island) assuring that pioneer children received at least a b...
For more than 65 years "Friday Harbor in a Nut-shell," a much-loved column in the local weekly newspaper, recorded just about everything anyone would want to know about life on San Juan Island in the ...
Generations of residents of Friday Harbor, the county seat of San Juan County in Northwest Washington, have had vivid memories of Virgil W. Frits, editor and publisher of the Friday Harbor Journal fro...
A few Japanese immigrants arrived in the San Juan Islands late in the nineteenth century to work in fish canneries; seasonal employment was arranged by Seattle labor contractors and not until 1917 did...
June (1893-1969) and Farrar (1888-1974) Burn, newly married in 1919 and searching for adventure and the best place to start their lives together, consulted an atlas and decided that the San Juan Islan...
Charles McKay was among the earliest and most colorful of the U.S. settlers on San Juan Island, located in far northwest Washington between the mainland and Vancouver Island, Canada. After years of ad...
On July 27, 1859, U.S. Army sutler Edward Warbass (1825-1906) accompanies Captain George Pickett (1825-1875) and 45 soldiers from Fort Bellingham when they disembark at the wharf at San Juan Town on S...
On October 31, 1873, the Washington Territorial Legislature creates San Juan County, separating the San Juan Islands from Whatcom County on the mainland, of which they have been part since the long-st...
On March 6, 1874, Joe Nuanna (1856-1874) is hanged at Port Townsend for the brutal murders of Harry (ca. 1839-1873) and Selena (ca. 1850-1873) Dwyer, young homesteaders on San Juan Island. When the vi...
On February 10, 1904, less than two years after the first transoceanic wireless telegraph message was successfully transmitted, the Pacific Wireless Telegraph Company establishes service in Friday Har...
On June 29, 1906, officials and residents of San Juan County gather to celebrate a cornerstone laying for a new county courthouse in Friday Harbor on San Juan Island. A larger building with proper vau...
On October 2, 1906, visitors from Whatcom and Skagit counties join residents of the San Juan Islands at the opening of the first San Juan County Fair. The organizer of the four-day fair, held on San J...
On May 9, 1910, Friday Harbor residents are exhorted by renowned evangelist preacher Billy Sunday (1862-1935) to renounce the multiple evils of liquor and the saloons that supply it. Not coincidentall...
On October 10, 1910, "Higgy," a cute and cuddly Kodiak bear cub from Alaska who for a few months has been a popular pet at the Olga Inn on Orcas Island in San Juan County, slips his collar and disappe...
On July 14, 1911, a devastating fire destroys the San Juan Lumber Company in Friday Harbor, the county seat of San Juan County in Northwest Washington, where the island population, isolated from mainl...
On August 30, 1914, the tugboat Lorne is steaming from Seattle through Haro Strait along the west side of San Juan Island in a heavy fog, towing the barge America with a load of co...
On January 11, 1918, the manager of the Northwestern Division of the American Red Cross authorizes the establishment of a San Juan County chapter headquartered in Friday Harbor on San Juan Island. Cou...
On August 31, 1948, an essay contest sponsored by Richard Exton (1912-1997) of the Exton Realty Company on Orcas Island concludes with selection of the winning entry. It is from Alice Annibal (1912-19...
On December 23, 1951, children in the San Juan Islands, who have little opportunity to meet Santa and give him their gift lists or even to see Christmas lights, are visited by a Christmas Ship from Be...
On April 3, 1959, in honor of San Juan Island's Pig War centennial, Emelia Bave (1910-2008) produces a variety show for the school P.T.A., highlighting island history and the events leading to that te...