Fairhaven Whatcom County, Washington
Mapped Location
Fairhaven: The mapped location is an approximation and should not be used for navigation or wayfinding.
Information
General information on Fairhaven
- Feature Type: Place
Official, historical, colloquial and alternative toponyms for Fairhaven
A brief list of names that this geographic feature has been named
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Fairhaven | Official |
Origin Notes and History of Fairhaven
References to Fairhaven that document the origin of its place name
FAIRHAVEN, see Bellingham.
A Selected Bibliography of Fairhaven, Whatcom County, Washington
A compilation of essential readings detailing the history, geography, and culture of the region.
Fairhaven a history by Brian L. Griffin
The complete history of that most southerly community on Bellingham Bay, one of the four original towns that were consolidated in 1904 to become the present City of Bellingham. Fairhaven, Washington--from the glaciers to today--the places, the participants, and the grand possibilities. A new arrival in 1889 said, "only crude raw beginnings, the primeval forest of giant firs and cedars barely pushed back to the hillsides, mud streets gouged out, raw with jumbled piles of burning stumps, flames and smoke obscuring the sky. On the beach, tents flap in the breeze and a few unpainted wooden structures suggest civilization is to come." In 2015, what would be recognizable to any of those old-timers would be the enterprising spirit of the latest inhabitants, who have done so much to create Fairhaven's modern growth and economic strength
xi, 275 pages : illustrations, maps ; 26 cm
Non-circulating [ 1 ]
The Fairhaven folktales of Dirty Dan Harris by Michael Sullivan
A biography of the storyteller Daniel Jefferson Harris (1826-1890) of the Puget Sound area of Washington State, USA.
74 pages : illustrations ; 14 x 22 cm
Non-circulating [ 1 ]
The birth, death, and resurrection of Fairhaven by George Hunsby
The birth, death, and resurrection of Fairhaven chronicles the grueling industrial boom, speculative collapse, and gradual civic reclamation of a coastal maritime enclave situated along the steep, heavily timbered shores of Bellingham Bay in northwestern Washington. Hunsby details how the region's formidable physical barriers—specifically the towering, impenetrable stands of old-growth coastal rainforest, the sheer, rocky sandstone bluffs plunging directly into the tidal wash, and the rugged, isolating ridges of the Chuckanut Mountains—strictly dictated the margins of early human survival, speculative urban planning, and aggressive resource extraction. By mapping the immense physical labor required to blast precarious railway grades through solid coastal bedrock, strip massive timber from the precipitous slopes, and forcibly engineer sprawling deepwater wharves and heavy brick commercial blocks directly into the unyielding hillside, the narrative highlights the monumental effort necessary to anchor a permanent industrial boomtown in this demanding maritime environment. The profound geographic isolation from established southern rail hubs initially forced these remote speculators and laborers into an absolute reliance on the perilous marine highway, completely anchoring their fleeting commercial existence and early economic survival to the coastal timber and coal trade, and the precise tidal topography of the bay. Ultimately, this local historical record serves as a deeply localized spatial history, demonstrating how the extreme coastal geography, immense physical labor, and shifting maritime realities of this Pacific Northwest frontier fundamentally shaped the fiercely resilient, economically volatile, and distinctly terrain-dependent character of Fairhaven's dramatic urban lifecycle.
101 leaves, 7 unnumbered leaves of plates : illustrations ; 22 cm
Non-circulating [ 1 ]
Whatcom County
- Acme
- Agate Bay
- Alabama Hill
- Alderwood
- Anacortes Crossing
- Balford
- Barron
- Beach
- City of Bellingham
- Birch Bay
- Birch Bay Circle Grange
- Birchwood
- City of Blaine
- Blue Canyon
- Boundary
- Boundary Bay
- Brennan
- Cedar Crossing
- Cedarville
- Chuckanut
- Clearbrook
- Clipper
- Columbia
- Comar
- Cottonwood Beach
- Custer
- Delta
- Deming
- Dewey
- Diablo
- Doran
- Eureka
- City of Everson
- Fairhaven
- City of Ferndale
- Forest Ridge
- Geneva
- Glacier
- Goshen
- Greenwood
- Gulfaire Mobile Villa
- Hampton
- Haynie
- Hillsdale
- Huntingdon
- Kendall
- Kickerville
- Kulshan
- Lakeway
- Larson Mill
- Laurel
- Lawrence
- Limestone Junction
- Lummi
- Lummi Island
- City of Lynden
- Maple Beach
- Maple Falls
- Marietta
- Mirror Lake
- Mountain View
- Neptune Beach
- Newhalem
- City of Nooksack
- Nooksack Salmon Hatchery
- Noon
- Northwood
- Nugents Corner
- Parkview
- Peaceful Valley
- Pleasant Valley
- Point Roberts
- Roosevelt
- Ruby (historical)
- Saxon
- Semiahmoo
- South Beach
- Sudden Valley
- City of Sumas
- Sunnyside
- Tenmile
- Tsawwassen Beach
- Van Wyck
- Van Zandt
- Victor
- Wahl
- Warnick
- Washington Colony (historical)
- Welcome
- Wickersham
Political Boundaries
Last updated: 2025-09-23