![]() Spanish and British explorers arrived in the late 1700s to map and name many of the surrounding islands and waterways: Rosario Strait, Guemes Channel, Padilla Bay, and the San Juan Islands. These Coast Salish tribes oriented their villages toward the abundance of the sea, and built a wealthy and sophisticated culture based on harvesting salmon and shellfish, fashioning clothing and basketry from natural materials, while plying the waters in canoes for trade, harvest and occasional raids. Members of the Samish tribe lived in cedar longhouses measuring over 1,000 feet their Guemes Island longhouse stood into the 20th century. Old-growth cedar and Douglas fir trees dominated the landscape from seashore to lake shore. Prior to the boom and bust of the 1890s, Fidalgo Island was home to the Samish and the Swinomish people for thousands of years. ![]() But those who were drawn to Anacortes established a vital and unique small town that progressed to All-America City status by 1962. Bowman promoted Anacortes as the "New York of the West," ultimately failing to establish the urban center he envisioned. Located on the north shore of Fidalgo Island in Washington State's Puget Sound, Anacortes was founded in 1879 by railroad surveyor Amos Bowman and named in honor of his wife, Anne Curtis. Excerpted from the book Images of America: Anacortes, 2009 By Bret Lunsford, Anacortes Museum Education Curator.
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