Skagit River Journal of History & Folklore Subscribers Edition Stories & Photos The most in-depth, comprehensive site about the Skagit. Covers from British Columbia to Puget Sound. Counties covered: Skagit, Whatcom, Island, San Juan, Snohomish & BC. An evolving history dedicated to committing random acts of historical kindness

Noel V. Bourasaw, editor 810 Central Ave., Sedro-Woolley, Washington, 98284 Home of the Tarheel Stomp Mortimer Cook slept here & named the town Bug

Albert S. Howard built this shingle mill near Bow in about 1885, a year after he moved to the territory. He later joined with logger Silas Butler to form the largest timber company in the area. Read about him in this story below. Photo courtesy of the book, Skagit Settlers, which is still for sale at the Historical Museum in LaConner.

      To furnish the Samish district, recognized as one of the richest sections of the county, with a new station in place of the one abandoned, the company established Bow. It erected a station building in the fall of 1902, and appointed Henry Christianson, resident agent. From the establishment of this station the real existence of the village dates.
      However, before the building of the railroad there had been a small settlement near Bow, known locally as Brownsville. It resulted from the building of a saw-mill on the Brown place in 1892 by the Howard-Butler Company [see the Silas Butler story], and the erection the same year of a school-house nearby. Several logging camps in the surrounding region contributed to the stability of the settlement, and gradually the number of ranchmen in the district increased. The post office did not come until July, 1901, or until after the railroad had been assured, and the service did not commence until just one year later, when E.E. Heusted [some sources spell the name Hustead] assumed the duties of postmaster. The post office and station were named Bow, at the suggestion of Mr. Brown, after the great Bow railroad station of London, England.
      The same year the post office was opened, Ben Gardner built the Bow hotel, first known as the Gardner house. The next spring, McDougall & Brown built a saloon and that summer, W. Nelson Crenshaw established the Bow department store in a shake house. At that time, also, the Winner Shingle Company built a shingle mill on the Brown farm, thus giving the town proper its first industry.
      By 1904, Mr. Brown concluded that the time was ripe for the formal institution of a town, so platted twelve acres of his ranch into the town site of Bow. E. E. Heusted opened a grocery store, a saloon was built, George McMillan erected a blacksmith shop and Shadel & Smith placed their meat market in service, all before the close of the year 1904.
      Since the first of the present year [1906], Bow has added to its business establishments another general store, a public hall, a restaurant and a bicycle shop, besides securing two rural free delivery routes attached to the post office. As it is the only railroad station between Burlington and Whatcom county, naturally its shipping and traffic are of considerable magnitude. The town has connection by stage twice a day with Edison, which lies three miles west, almost on the bay.
      A summary of the business houses of Bow would include the following: General stores, W. [Nelson] Crenshaw, W. H. Benson; grocery and post office, E. E. Heusted; hotel and livery stables, John Peterson; restaurant, Mrs. T. D. Welch; blacksmith shop, George McMillan; meat market, Shadel & Smith; barber shop, bicycle store, Christianson [possibly Henry Christianson family]; two saloons, also the shingle mill of the Winner Shingle Company, capacity eighty thousand a day, Alexander McGaskill, manager. Patrick McCoy's large logging camp lies only a mile south.
      Aside from its strategic location as a business and shipping point, Bow has a rich tributary farming country, which, however, is not very extensively improved at the present time.

• Our portal site to the town of Bow, Washington, with links to all our photo features and other background sources for further reading.
  
• Part Two, the Northwest Skagit Advocate, Oct. 10, 1908: early days of town of Bow and environs. This complete four-part transcription was initially shared with paid subscribers in Issue 34 of our optional Subscribers-Paid Journal magazine online
  
• This site about Samish Island History is a veritable feast of well researched information about the whole Samish River watershed as well as the island itself. It features a history timeline, Indian points of view, wonderful photos and a full bibliography.
  
• We hope that a reader will have more photos of Bow and its early settlers and the folks who stayed on to settle the area. We are also adding profiles of other towns in the area, so please send us information and scans of photos of your family's town. We especially want to find descendants of William J. Brown and Ben Gardner and other early pioneers. We especially want to see copies of early newspapers. We do not need your originals; photocopies will work just fine.
  
• A list of all the stories about Blanchard, Fravel, Oyster Creek and Edward R. Murrow.
  

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