Guemes Skagit County, Washington

Name: Guemes
Address: Washington

Mapped Location

Guemes: The mapped location is an approximation and should not be used for navigation or wayfinding.

Information

General information on Guemes

Feature Type: Place

Official, historical, colloquial and alternative toponyms for Guemes

A brief list of names that this geographic feature has been named

Name	Description
Guemes	Official

Origin Notes and History of Guemes

References to Guemes that document the origin of its place name

GUEMES ISLAND AND CHANNEL, in the northwestern part of Skagit County. The Spanish explorer Eliza, 1791, named it "Isla de Gueme" in honor of the Viceroy of Mexico, under whose orders he had sailed to the Northwest. The Viceroy's full name was Sefior Don Juan Vicente de Guemes Pacheco y Padilla Orcasitees y Aguayo, Conde de Revilla Gigedo. (Pacific Railroad Reports, Volume XII, Part I, page 302.) Parts of the long name are in use for geographical names. Vancouver did not attempt to name the island in 1792, but in that year the Spaniards, Galiano and Valdez, repeated Eliza's name as "Isla de Guemes." The Wilkes Expedition, 1841, undertook to change the name to "Lawrence Island" in honor of the famous American naval hero, James Lawrence. To intensify the honor, Wilkes gave the name "Hornet Harbor" to what is now known as Guemes Channel after the vessel Lawrence commanded when he captured the English vessel Penguin in the War of 1812, and to the north of the island he charted "Penguin Harbor," which name has disappeared, being considered a part of the present Bellingham Channel. In 1847, Captain Kellett restored the name Guemes Island on the British Admiralty Chart 1911. That name has been retained on the United States Government charts, which have also added the names of Guemes Channel and Bellingham Channel.

Edmond S. Meany in Origin of Washington Geographic Names

Meany, Edmond S., Origin of Washington Geographic Names, 1923 University of Washington, pp 105-106 | Origin of Washington Geographic Names

A Selected Bibliography of Guemes, Skagit County, Washington

A compilation of essential readings detailing the history, geography, and culture of the region.

This isle of Guemes by Helen Troy Elmore, Community Club of Guemes Island

This isle of Guemes examines the isolated insular settlement and tight-knit community development situated within the narrow marine channels and heavily wooded shorelines of the eastern Salish Sea. Elmore and the Community Club detail how the region's distinct archipelagic topography—specifically the steep coastal bluffs, the protected, gravel-strewn coves, and the swift tidal currents of Guemes Channel separating it from Fidalgo Island—strictly dictated the margins of early homesteading, transportation, and civic organization. By mapping the evolution of scattered pioneer farms and early mosquito fleet transit into a resilient, ferry-dependent enclave, the narrative highlights how this specific insular geography anchored the islanders' profound reliance on localized cooperation and marine connectivity. Ultimately, this community record serves as a deeply localized spatial history, demonstrating how the pervasive marine isolation and defining tidal boundaries of this Pacific Northwest island fundamentally shaped the highly cohesive, geography-dependent character of Guemes Island.

139 pages 23 cm

Non-circulating [ 1 ]

History · 1st Edition · Printed by Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho, 1973
Related Catalog Items: Guemes · Guemes Island · Skagit County

Skagit County

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Last updated: 2024-06-03