Historic Landmarks in Friday Harbor

The Town of Friday Harbor has over 150 historic sites and other places of interest within walking distance of the ferry terminal, public harbor and airport. Twenty-six of these sites are described in the Historic Friday Harbor on Foot: Historic Downtown Walking Tour guide.

San Juan County Courthouse, 1906
Second Renaissance Style,
National Register of Historic Places,
Corner of Court and Second Streets
Friday Harbor was chosen as the county seat when San Juan became a county in 1873. Until 1906 the affairs of the new county were conducted in various wood frame buildings, the first, a 16x24 foot shack which served as the courthouse and the home of Edward Warbass, the county’s first auditor; the second, a two-story wood-frame building at the southeast corner of Spring and First streets. In 1906 the county commissioners approved plans for a new building, one that would “assume graceful proportions” and to be “in keeping with the dignity and growing importance of San Juan County.” Seattle architect, William P. White, designed the building; the estimated cost was $12,000, the actual cost was $14,000. There were structural issues early on: a collapsed roof during construction, and six months later, foundation settling. In the 1980’s, the adequacy and safety of the building again came into question and the building was vacated. Ten years later, the building became a designated national landmark, while locally the community debated over whether to save or demolish it. A special advisory ballot passed by the voters finally tipped the scales toward restoration. In 2006 the stately and historic building celebrated 100 years of government service.

Odd Fellows Hall, 1892
Washington Heritage Register
62 First Street
Originally the Odd Fellows Hall, this building was the hub of the community’s social life until the 1940’s. Built by members of the Mount Dallas Lodge #95 of the I.O.O.F., the building accommodated Lodge meetings upstairs, and community events downstairs. Many older island residents remember attending graduations, plays, Christmas celebrations, basketball games, and dances there. The building also served as the courtroom for some of the county’s most infamous early trials. In 1895, Richard Straub was tried there for the murder of Leon Lauterman. The case drew so much attention the courthouse was too small to hold the crowd. Straub was found guilty and later become the only person to be hanged in San Juan County. Later, on May 9, 1910, Billy Sunday used the hall to thunder against “demon rum”. The next day voters declared the town dry. Today, the building is the Whale Museum, and is listed on the Washington State Heritage Register.

Old County Jail
Built 1895
Relocated 1971
San Juan Historical Museum - 405 Price St.
Until the 1980s, the county jail was located in what is now the Courthouse parking lot. The jail was a small one-story hipped-roof building with a steeple in the center. According to local historian, the late F.H. Van Cleve, the jail had a yellow light above the outside doorway, that when lit, indicated the presence of a miscreant. Naturally, this created quite a buzz whenever the bulb was lit. Today, a modern jail facility is part of the courthouse annex, while the historic former jail building enjoys retirement as a historical exhibit on the grounds of the San Juan Historical Museum, just a few blocks away.

Memorial Park, 1890's
Intersection of Front and Spring Streets
This postage stamp-sized park has long been the meeting place for those arriving and departing San Juan Island. On November 11, 1921, a granite memorial—the first of its kind in the state of Washington—was erected to commemorate the nine Island servicemen who were lost in World War I. Many of those lost were buried in the battlefields where they fell. For their families and the tight-knit community, Memorial Park became sacred ground. Years later, in August 1945, islanders gathered at the park to celebrate the end of WWII. On more than one occasion, the monument has been struck by run-away vehicles, but each time stood its ground. In 1972 and 2004, controversy arose over plans to renovate and expand the park. Opponents were concerned about the impact on traffic flow and the potential ferry service delays it would cause. In the end, the monument prevailed, and in 2006 the park was renovated and extended to the shoreline. Fittingly, the re-dedication took place on Memorial Day.

Boede Cement Plant, 1890's
Nichols Street
The last industrial building still standing in Friday Harbor, this barn-like building is referred to as the Boede Cement Plant, and is believed to have been in operation as early as the 1890s. Little is known about Boede, however the plant was later acquired by A.J. (Alvie) Paxson, an adventurer who took off for the Klondike, and recorded his Gold Rush adventures in a series of colorful letters published in the "Islander" newspaper. After his return, Paxson's Friday Harbor Brick and Tile Company produced the distinctive cement blocks that were used to build Friday Harbor Town Hall and other local commercial buildings still in use today. Samples of the company's product decorate the masonry portions of the front and rear facades of the building. A.J. Paxson went on to be mayor of Friday Harbor from 1928-1930.

Kirk / D'Arcy House, 1907
595 Park Street, Craftsman Style
This lovely residence was built in 1907 by Peter Kirk, a young and enterprising Scottish steel magnate who, with his wife and family of eight children, immigrated to the United States in the late 1880s. The Kirks settled first near Seattle, in what is now Kirkland, Washington, where Kirk established the Great Western Iron & Steel Company to exploit the iron deposits in the Snoqualmie Mountains. Steel production requires lime, which was being quarried and processed on San Juan Island.

After discovering and falling in love with the island, Kirk built a 500 acre hunting estate called Deer Lodge at the north end of the island at Mitchell Bay. But following the tragic deaths of his daughter and then his beloved wife, Mary, he could no longer remain in such a large home. In 1907 he built a small, elegant residence just outside the growing town of Friday Harbor. It was there, in this peaceful setting, that Kirk spent what he says were the best years of his successful life. He died peacefully in the house in 1916. Funeral services were held in the parlor. The house was later residence of Kirk’s sister, Olive, who moved there at an early age, after the untimely death of her husband, Captain D’Arcy, of the Mosquito Fleet. Olive’s sister, Fannie Kirk Capron lived nearby, and later her son, Vic Capron, Jr. and his family lived there for many years.

The house was purchased by new owners in 1992 with the intent of maintaining it as a single family home. However, the renovations required to accommodate a family with small children would have seriously compromised the historical and architectural integrity of the house. Instead, the owners chose to creatively adapt the house for a B&B, (now named the Kirk House Bed & Breakfast) as it has been used ever since.

San Juan County Bank, 1907
Located at 105 Spring Street
This building is remembered for San Juan County's first bank and continues to be one of the most significant structures in downtown Friday Harbor. San Juan County Bank was founded in 1893 when the economy on the island, and in the Northwest in general, was beginning to blossom. The original wood-frame building was located across the street. The new masonry structure, more substantial and ornate than any of the town's other commercial buildings, reflected the town's growing prosperity. It took seven months to construct, and boasted a “burglar-proof vault with burglar-proof safe.” The bank's first president was J.A. Gould of Seattle; his son, Gene, was the bank's first cashier. During his lifetime, Gene Gould was notable for being both the youngest cashier (at age 19), and later, the youngest bank president in the United States (at age 29). San Juan County Bank was central to the Island economy, at that time based upon farming, fishing, logging and the lime industry. When the Town of Friday Harbor was incorporated two years after the construction of the building, bank president Gene Gould became the Town's first mayor. The bank continued to operate in this location until 1978. Today the building is a fine example of adaptive re-use, housing the Coldwell Banker Realty offices.

Saloon Best, late 1870's
Intersection of Spring and Front Streets
At the intersection of Spring and Front Streets is the Front Street Café. The café is a later addition to the Arcade Building, originally called Saloon Best, which wraps around the block. Looking at the roofline from Front Street you can see where the addition starts and the original saloon begins by the change from flat to gable roof. The saloon was built in the late 1870s, and may be the oldest building in town.

The cafe addition housed the Newport Pool Room, an expansion made by saloon owner John “Jack” Douglass after 1906. The poolroom structure was built over the bank of a creek that has since been paved over. An early picture of the waterfront shows the creek and a small boat moored just a bit "up-creek" below the rear corner of the building. The boat belonged to Douglass, who transported his "world class liquors" to the saloon's back door via the sturdy little vessel, the Dolly D.

Originally, the main entrance to the saloon opened onto Spring Street. One clue to its location is the orphaned step sitting above the sidewalk between two sets of double windows. Prior to paving, many lower Spring Street buildings had expansive wooden step/sidewalk structures to accommodate the steep slope of the street. Over the years, the surface of the street was elevated with rock fill to accommodate water and sewer lines. Not until the 1980s was the street paved as we see it today.

Sometime after 1906, the original Arcade building with its lovely barrel-shaped façade saw a flat-roofed building addition on the uphill side. The addition was probably a separate building at one time. In photographs taken as recently as 1955, the saloon’s decorative cornice does not extend to the new building (Arcade Shops and entrance), or the next building (today, Gourmet Galley) as it does today.

By the 1930s, Saloon Best was purchased by the local Moose Lodge and the interior was modified to flow into the adjacent building. Many community dances and other events took place here, though the second building had considerably fewer street-level windows, and provided fewer opportunities to see the goings-on from the street. The arcade entrance was added later, after the Moose Lodge vacated, and doesn’t show up in photos until well after 1955 or 1960.

The Cannery Managers’ Home, 1905
On the corner of Front and A Streets
Known today as The Doctor’s Office coffee shop, this building was once the cannery manager’s home. It is the last surviving structure associated with the Pacific American Fisheries Cannery, later the Friday Harbor Packing Company, now long gone. In its heyday, the cannery employed over 1000 American, Japanese and Chinese laborers, some of them housed in a dormitory-like two-story building that stood where cars now wait for ferry loading. The original farmhouse was substantially less ornate: the gable roof, covered front porch, side bay window and stately rear chimney are still notable. The Victorian embellishments, colorful paint, second story stairways and balconies are recent additions.

Pacific Catalyst II, 1932
Friday Harbor Marina, September - October
The Catalyst is a restored 1932 wooden research vessel. Her maiden voyage was up the Inside Passage and across the Gulf of Alaska, beginning her oceanographic research for the University of Washington's Friday Harbor Labs and the marine sciences community. She is registered with the National Park Services Maritime Heritage Program.