San Juan County

San Juan County (click image for detailed view)

County History

Long before the first white man set foot on the San Juan Islands their charms were known to the Lummi Indians, a peace-loving, easy-going tribe who found the living too easy here to be concerned with warring forays like their more bellicose neighbors to the north, south, and east. According to Lummi tradition, the tribe is descended from a First man, who dropped from the sky centuries ago to found their race. This aboriginal Adam lived on the northeast shore of San Juan Island, which is probably the nearest thing to the Biblical Garden of Eden he could have found in this part of the world.1

Later the Lummi settlements were moved to Orcas Island and then, about a century ago, to the mainland. Today the Lummis live on Gooseberry Point, near Bellingham, just across Rosario Strait from their ancestral home.1

Juan de Fuca, whose real name was Apostolos Valerianos, was a Greek sea captain who sailed the Pacific in the late 1500s for the Spanish. He claimed to have discovered, on one of his trips along what we now know as the northwest coast of the United States, a "broad inlet of sea" in which he sailed for three weeks and found land and waterways trending in almost every direction of the compass.1

De Fuca's story was eventually published in a book which had a large readership in the next two centuries, and belief in the existence of de Fuca's strait was widespread. Therefore, when the fur trader, Charles Barkley, discovered the entrance to a broad strait off the northwest coast, not far from where de Fuca reported it, Barkley supposed he had found Juan de Fuca's strait, and gave it that name.1

Barkley discovered the straits in 1787, but did not dare enter far enough to see the San Juans. The first man to do so was Manuel Quimper, a Spanish explorer, who saw the islands but mistook them for a part of the mainland to the north. Quimper discovered Haro Strait, which he named for his pilot, Gonzalo Lopez de Haro.1

A year afterward another Spaniard, Francisco Eliza, took an expedition of two sailing vessels into the strait and sent the schooner Santa Saturnina into the islands to give them a good looking over.1

The Santa Saturnina was piloted by First Pilot Juan Pantoja y Arriaga. Pantoja discovered the broad reaches of Georgia Strait, to which he gave the name of "Rosario." He then sailed eastward to a small island he named "Patos," meaning ducks; it still retains the name to this day.1

In the next few days the party visited the Sucia group and Matia, and probably Clark and Barnes Islands. Pantoja also gave Sucia its present name, which in Spanish marine language means "rocky." Matia he called originally "Mal abrigo" or "Bad Anchorage," and that name was later shortened to its present form.1

In 1792 the Spanish were back to do some more exploring in the area, but they were beaten to it by Capt. Vancouver, who had passed by in the spring on his way to discovering Puget Sound. Passing the San Juans, Vancouver was intrigued by this appealing group of islands and he sent one of his lieutenants, William Broughton, to look them over. Broughton's reconnaissance provided the first look at the interior of the islands.1

Broughton took one of Vancouver's two vessels, the Chatham, across the strait from Port Discovery and entered the narrow, rocky passage between Lopez and San Juan on May 18, 1792. The Chatham explored throughout Lopez Sound, Harney Channel, Rosario Strait, and over to Cypress Island. Although Broughton himself did not name any of the islands or features he found in the San Juans, he did call a charming bay on the west shore of Cypress, where the men found delicious wild strawberries in abundance "Strawberry Bay."1

Captain Vancouver sailed into Strawberry Bay on June 8 where he remained for a couple of days. To prevent scurvy among his crew he put them to work brewing "spruce beer" and also had them collecting wild onions which grew there, and replenished the ships' water supplies. Vancouver called the island "Cypress" for the many tall evergreens he found there and which he mistook for cypress trees.1

Vancouver and the Spanish explorers were unaware of each other's presence until finally they met in Boundary Bay, north of Bellingham. Both parties continued their explorations of the waterways to the north of the San Juans, where they circumnavigated Vancouver Island and returned to the Pacific by that route.1

In 1841 Captain John Wiles, who was sent by Congress to survey the coasts of America, came to the San Juans, and proceeded to change all the names to some that suited him better. Wilkes named Shaw Island, Jones, Clark, and Obstruction Islands, and he named some prominent features of the Islands, notably Mount Constitution, President Channel, Point Lawrence, Peapod Rocks, Point Doughty, and so forth, names which are still in use.1

Although all the northwest country was claimed, at one time, by four nations – England, Spain, Russia, and the United States – none of these countries seemed to care much one way or the other about the San Juan Islands in particular. For half a century they remained the domain of roving Indian bands. Very occasionally, an intrepid French-Canadian trapper would pass by.1

In 1844, the battle for the White House centered around the slogan of James Polk, "54-50 or fight," meaning Polk intended to insist on Americas's claim to the Northwest territories as far north as Alaska. Two years later we settled for a boundary along the 49th parallel between Canada and America, but because of inattention to the San Juans by both sides, the treaty was worded in an ambiguous way that could have put the islands on either side of the line.1

In 1850 the Hudson Bay Company (HBC) established a small fishing station at Eagle Cove and learned the Indian method of reef-netting salmon, which they salted and shipped to company forts scattered around the territory.1

While the diplomats muddled, American and British settlers began arriving on the island. One of the Americans was a disappointed Fraser River gold miner, Lyman Cutler, whose farm was near the HBC post overlooking Griffin Bay. Cutler had a small patch of garden in which he frequently discovered a pig, owned by the manager of the HBC post, Charles Griffin. Cutler eventually shot the pig. Cutler's anger is more understandable in view of the fact that he had rowed a boat all the way to the Olympic Peninsula and back for the seed potatoes he planted in his little patch. A company of 60 infantry under George Pickett was dispatched from Fort Bellingham to San Juan. The British answered by dispatching Captain Hornby and a force of men from the navy base at Esquimalt to "drive the Americans from the island."2

Hornby told Pickett his orders were to land and he hoped there would be no bloodshed. Pickett assured him the Americans – though vastly outnumbered – would fight to the last man. Hornby sent for reinforcements and before long the British numbered 2,140 men and had five ships in the bay with 167 guns.2

Word of the events had reached Washington by now and President James Buchanan sent Lieutenant General Winfield Scott, commander-in-chief of the Army, to the island to try to set things right and preserve peace. Scott quickly proposed to Governor Dougles, in Victoria, a joint occupation of the island by 100 men from each side and dual sovereignty of the San Juans until the Islands' ownership had been determined by the two governments. The proposal was accepted.2

By request of the British, contained in a secret message to Scott, Pickett was removed from command of the American Camp. With the beginning of the Civil War, he – being a Southerner – left the Northwest to join the Confederacy, and later gained fame as the leader of the brave Southern charge at Gettysburg.2

The two garrisons were maintained on San Juan throughout the war. Finally in 1871 America and Great Britain agreed to submit the question to arbitration by the Emperor of Germany, who decided, the following year, in favor of the United States.2

Though the economy of the San Juans has been helped along over the years by fishing, tourism, farming, fruit growing, logging, and so forth, the single most important source of income has been limestone. Crude, early-fay lime quarries put coins in the pockets of islanders with no other way of making a living, or bolstered the income of families living on small farms. For scores of years it was next to impossible to starve in the San Juan Islands, because there was always wood to be cut for a-dollar-and-a-quarter a cork at the limestone company.2

A dozen or so of these old kilns, some of them reduced to mere heaps of rubble, can be found still on Orcas Island. Seven still stand on San Juan, one on Crane, and two are still to be seen on Henry Island. In the 1890s the Roche Harbor operation was the largest lime producer west of the Mississippi. Here there was a ledge of the purest limestone, a quarter of a mile wide and three-quarters of a mile long, extending from the water line across the tip of San Juan to Westcott Bay. The Roche Harbor Lime and Cement Company sold out in 1956 to Ruben Tarte. Some say the lime supply played out, although Tarte insists that large, workable lime deposits remain on the property, and that the lime company failed due to a shortage of fuel and to poor management. Limestone must be processed at high heat, and the only fuel on the island that creates enough heat was old-growth fir.2

Back to Top

Historical Population

Historical Population Counts for San Juan County, Washington from 1900 to 1990. [Based on data that was compiled and edited by Richard L. Forstall of the U.S. Census Bureau, 3/27/95. Available at <http://www.census.gov/population/cencounts/wa190090.txt>]

Back to Top

Census Data

The following table contains census data from the U.S. Census Bureau for San Juan County.3

(a) Includes persons reporting only one race.
(b) Hispanics may be of any race, so also are included in applicable race categories.

Back to Top

References Cited

1. Richardson, David. 1964. Magic Islands: A Treasure-Trove of San Juan Islands Lore. Orcas. Orcas, WA.

2. Miller, Jerome. 1988. Friday Harbor & San Juan Island. Umbrella Books. Friday Harbor, WA.

3. U.S. Census Bureau. State and County QuickFacts: San Juan County, Washington. <http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/53/53055.html> Last Revised: Wednesday, 07-May-2003 16:50:08 EDT.

Back to Top