Behind the Sign

Over the many years that I’ve lived in Mount Vernon, I’ve only had one occasion on which to enter the Skagit County Courthouse on Kincaid Street. I did so not because I had any official business to conduct, but because I had read a story by our beloved local historian, Dick Fallis, entitled, Early Day Flag Still “Flies” at Courthouse. As part of our Tales of the Magic Skagit series on downtown Mount Vernon’s historic buildings, I had to see this bit of history dating back to the town’s founding for myself.

Sail north of the Sitkaday Narrows, below the Brady Icefield in Glacier Bay National Park, and you’ll travel past a body of water known as Whidbey Passage. If that name sounds familiar, it certainly should. Like the island on the other side of Deception Pass from Skagit County, it was named for Master Joseph Whidbey, the first European voyager to determine that Whidbey Island is, in fact, just that — an island.

Situated beside the Skagit River in one of the most fertile valleys of the Pacific Northwest, it's no surprise that Mount Vernon developed from a small river settlement into the commercial and governmental center of the Magic Skagit. Its history, going back to "time immemorial," encompasses Indigenous peoples, pioneer settlement, logging and agriculture, steamboats and railroads, destructive fires and floods, highway construction, and the continuing effort to preserve both farmland and a historic downtown identity. Through all of these changes, the Skagit River (the largest river flowing into Puget Sound) has remained Mount Vernon’s most defining feature.

My wife and I were recently traveling north on Hwy. 97 through Oregon, on the way home from a family reunion in California’s gold country. We were passing through the town of Chemult (population 79), just northeast of Crater Lake, when a mural on the long side of a restaurant immediately caught our eyes. And once again we found ourselves asking the question that had arisen in so many travels in the PNW and beyond: Who the heck is henry?

Among the displays in the statehouse in Olympia dedicated to Washington’s legal history is an artifact from the Revolutionary War: a letter from General George Washington to General Nelson, dated November 8, 1777 — a time when the course of the war seemed to be taking a turn for the better, at least on some fronts.

On May 19, 2026 — six days before our nation’s 158th Memorial Day — nine men gathered at the Skagit County Historical Museum to honor a ship named after a place that none of them were from: the USS Skagit, a Tolland-class attack cargo ship that served as a workhorse of the U.S. Navy for over two decades. This reunion was their 35th, and most likely their last — which was the reason that their gathering took place in the county that was their vessel’s namesake. 

At a recent Mount Vernon Kiwanis Club meeting, we recognized a couple of “students of the month,” and we were all impressed with not only their academic achievements, but even more so with their community involvement and their belief in the importance of service in their lives. In response, Swil Kanim honored our young award recipients with music, and prefaced his pieces with stories of a wise uncle and the healing mysteries of nature that with Swil Kanim’s permission I’m honored to share. Enjoy the beauty of his words as well as his violin. 

Next month I’ll be observing my 75th orbit around the sun. Having reached the three-quarters of a century mark, I’ve been a bonafide witness to the truth of the adage “What is old becomes new again.” While I certainly can’t apply that bit of folk wisdom to myself (75 years is, after all, 75 years), it’s an observation that rings true for the signage that Meyer Sign recently created for Mount Vernon’s venerable green space, Hillcrest Park. Allow me to explain.

I vividly recall my first encounter with Turkish coffee. It wasn’t in Turkey, but in Athens, Greece. I ordered a coffee at a street cafe, expecting the usual steaming hot mug of percolated joe that I’d come to know and love in the good ole USofA. Instead, to my astonishment, I was served a demitasse cup that looked straight out of my kid sister’s make believe tea set, filled with an aromatic brown sludge. That first sip forever changed my perception of coffee, and after my initial shock wore off, I discovered that I really liked it. I still do. Which is way I was so delighted to discover the existence of the Corner Caffé in Anacortes. 

Over the six years and counting that Meyer Sign has been bringing you its Tales of the Magic Skagit stories, we've shared a number of historical accounts -- spanning a period from "time immemorial" to the 20th century. Our hands down obsession, however, has been with a late 19th century utopian community that once existed in the Bow/Blanchard area off today's Chuckanut Road. "They Called the Town Equality" is a multi-episode history of the community known as Equality Colony, with stories and podcast interviews featuring Sayer Theiss, Melissa Stowe, and Robert Burns. We've put them all together in one handy dandy place, so settle in and steep yourself in one of the Magic Skagit's most interesting bits of history.

Since he came to Washington from his home state of New Hampshire in 1989, Craig Romano has hiked more than 35,000 miles in Washington and British Columbia, and he's published more than 25 books dedicated to running, walking, hiking, and biking in the PNW. His latest book on urban trail adventures is a comprehensive guide to no less than 55 splendid hikes just a day trip from the Magic Skagit in one of the most amazing cities in the world: Vancouver, BC. Set your compass for due north, eh.

Laurie Wells was truly a "Skagit Original" whose life and artwork was celebrated by an exhibit at the Skagit County History Museum in La Conner -- a place that Laurie depicted in many of his artworks. But Laurie Wells was more than an artist. He and his wife Marian were active in the Grange movement, and Laurie was also instrumental in the creation of annual flower shows that would evolve into today's Skagit Valley Tulip Festival.