August, 2020
For two days now, I have been camped at Washington Park campground, just outside the town of Anacortes. I have seen mountains and lakes and marshlands and forests and beaches, but … I haven’t seen the town of Anacortes. So this next morning, I drove into town (just a few minutes away), and I parked the big white truck, and I took off on foot to see what I could see by walking some of the residential streets of town.
It’s a lovely town! It’s a perfect town for walking the streets and seeing the sights.
I parked in an older residential area and picked a nice shady spot for the big white truck. (Remember that this camping trip was in August!)
The building next to me, where I had parked, was partially hidden by huge lovely trees. I truly hadn’t realized where I had parked until I got out of the truck and looked up at the building. The Carnegie Library! That was so cool for me and I’ll tell you why. For one thing, I’ve worked in two different libraries in my life … Sno-Isle Regional Library (at its headquarters in Marysville, WA) and the Washington (State) Talking Book & Braille Library (in Seattle, WA). So I love libraries. But also, and here’s the kicker, the mother of one of my very dearest friends was a Librarian in Anacortes and worked as a cataloger for the library. What were the chances that I would simply drive to that very spot and park? Amazing.
Several years ago, the Anacortes Library moved out of this building and into a newer building. This large Carnegie building now houses the Anacortes Museum. Unfortunately for me on this trip, the museum was closed indefinitely due to COVID-19.
But that was ok since I had streets to walk, and things to see, and people to talk with. So off I went on foot to see what the residential area of Anacortes looked like.
Anacortes was incorporated as a city in 1891. Many of the homes here are from that era and from the early 1900s.
The large majority of homes were very well cared for with tidy lawns and flower beds, or with “yards” over-flowing with well-tended shrubs and flowers and herbs instead of lawns. The people here evidently love to garden. In front of many homes, even on the grass verge between the sidewalk and the street, were rows of fruit trees.
Apples … yum!
Peaches … so perfectly ripe that I could smell them before I saw them.
Pears … oh I love pears, and could almost feel the sweet juice running down my chin.
It was awfully tempting to simply reach up and pick something, but I restrained myself. Later in the week here, I did come across a local farmers’ market and happily purchased some fresh pears.
But this morning was just a walk out and about, so let’s keep going and see some more things.
A Casita travel trailer … similar in construction to Escape travel trailers.
The grand old home above was obviously owned by a serious gardener. It appeared to be very well maintained, although there were relatively young trees right up against the side of the house that I would not have planted there. Nonetheless, this house was huge and handsome and homey with a terrific front porch, and it had something that many others didn’t. In the photo below, this same house is on the very right side of the photo … what a beautiful view the people in this house had of the water and of other islands in the area. I bet they could see Mt. Baker too (to the northeast) and surely the Canadian Rockies to the north too.
There were so many great homes in this large, old, residential area of Anacortes. I took dozens and dozens of photos but am sharing only a sample with you here.
A few modern homes had snuck into the neighborhood.
I liked the small house in the photo above a lot. It too had a super view of the water and the islands. Hmmm, or maybe I just loved that little MX-5 that was parked in front of the house. 🙂
I haven’t told you about the people here. They were so friendly. Everyone who was outside either waved to me, or nodded, or spoke a few words to me. As I passed one home, the owners were outside in among small trees along the sidewalk. The people were hanging paper origami birds and flowers they had made. When I admired one of the origami flowers in particular, the woman reached up and plucked it off the tree and gave it to me. When I protested, they both said that they make these origami pieces and hang them expressly so people can take them. They laughed and said how much they enjoy sharing joy.
There were a great many signs in Anacortes saying “Black Lives Matter” and saying “God loves color, so do we” (with a rainbow flag for LGB/etc). Many homes had solar panels on the roofs. Some of the vegetable gardens had signs saying “help yourself”. While I was walking, if I came anywhere near an intersection and a car appeared there as well, the driver always stopped and motioned for me to cross the street. Now, maybe that’s the law in the this town, but people seemed to do more than meet the letter of the law … they just seemed so friendly and peaceful and caring and courteous.
I like Anacortes!
I love this town too, I could live here!
I thought that exact same thing! 🙂
Me too. What a great town. And a great car, that MX-5, I used to own one and still wish I hadn’t sold it. Thanks Ann.
Oh boy, I bet you do miss that car, Ben. What fun I bet you had. Ahh me, sigh. I owned a Datsun 240Z car many years ago, that car could go around a 90-degree street corner at 60 miles an hour without a peep. Well, ok, 50 miles an hour. But those sorts of cars sure are fun to drive.
What a wonderful place!! I would love to live there.
Me too! 🙂
That seems like not only a town we’d like to visit but to live in. Love the Charm.
Be Safe and Enjoy your explorations.
It’s about time.
It sure is full of charm. And really nice people.
Do you remember Bobo, the gorilla who used to live at Woodland Park Zoo? The stone house just below the pictures of the “grand old home” is where he spent his “childhood”. (Is there a special name for gorilla babies? ) As I understand it, the house is built with native stone. I have always wanted to see the inside because it’s supposed to be a pretty special place.
We used to sit on our front porch, looking out over the channel, and at dusk the cormorants would fly from the bays and inland waters back to the San Juan islands for the night. They fly fairly low over the water and it would be so quiet that one could hear their wings going “whiff, whiff, whiff”. Very special time and place.
Wow, what another coincidence (or not). I have photos of dozens of homes that I didn’t include in this blog, but in the end I decided to include that stone home in the blog post. When I first parked the truck and was standing there looking at the front of the Carnegie building, I noticed the placard of a small gorilla on the front of the building, but I didn’t realize it was Bobo! Yes I remember Bobo! Or at least I remember news stories about him. I had no idea he was raised in Anacortes, and just down the street from the “grand old home”.
What a perfect description of evenings on that front porch watching the water and the birds. Thank you. Special time and place indeed … indeed.
Really nice description of an evening watching and listening to the cormorants and the channel Fritzi. I’ve read a lot of pacific northwest books and have lived around Puget Sound most of my life. Can’t say I’ve ever read anything better than what you wrote. Really nice.
I agree Rob. Thank you.
That is one of the prettiest Carnigie libraries’ that I have ever seen!
I agree. Isn’t that just the most handsome and beautiful Carnegie building ever?
Carnegie is a beloved figure in the hearts of all librarians. The library in Anacortes was 1 of 1,689 Carnegie funded in cities and small towns across America.
Andrew Carnegie was an amazing man. A dirt poor Scottish immigrant to America in 1848 when he was 12, he became an industrialist and was the richest American by the early 1900s. Fortunately he was also a true philanthropist who gave away most of his wealth! In 1889 in his article “Wealth”, published as an article in North American Review, he describes the responsibility of philanthropy. ( The article is now available in book form from Amazon under the title The Gospel of Wealth.)
Sources: many Internet articles
I didn’t know any of that. Thank you, Jan!
I especially like that Andrew Carnegie was a Scot. 🙂
Have now ordered the book “The Gospel of Wealth” from my local library.
Sounds like the place to be, doesn’t it? I’m partial to those old houses, too. And the fruit trees!
Old houses are the best. 🙂 And juicy dripping ripe fruit are right up there too.
For any Croatian readers:
I met a lady in the senior housing community where I live who said she was from Anacortes, and she was Yugoslavian. That caught my attention because back when Tito was still around, I traveled there. (At that time Croatia was part of Yugoslavia.)
As a result of meeting her I read a little bit about the history of Anacortes, and was surprised to discover that Croatians came to Anacortes very early in its development. Their descendents stayed on and are preserving their heritage with their Croatian Cultural Center, which has an interesting website name: littlechurch-anacortes.com.
Again, I didn’t know any of that. And I didn’t see any information about that on the Anacortes websites that I found. Thank you for sleuthing other websites than I did, and thank you for the link to the website for the Croatian Cultural Center. The information/history of the three Marias is important and wonderful!