History of Bellingham, Washington
George Vancouver, who visited the area in June 1792, named the bay for Sir William Bellingham, the controller of the storekeeper's account of the Royal Navy.
Local history and legend credit one "Blanket" Bill Jarman as the first white man to reside in the area, possibly held captive by native peoples from 1841-1843.
Henry Roeder and Russel Peabody set up a lumber mill in Dec 1852, having been told of the falls location by Lummi leader Cha-wit-zit while south in Olympia, Washington.
[4] Meanwhile, Daniel Jefferson Harris (aka Dirty Dan) arrived in the Bellingham Bay area in 1853 or 1854, and befriended John Thomas, who had filed a land claim along Padden Creek.
They promoted the land rich in natural resources, good weather, and endless possibilities, causing the population to grow from around 150 in 1889 to 8000 at the end of 1890.
[7] In August 1856, the U.S. Army started construction on Fort Bellingham to prevent attacks on the bayside villages of Fairhaven, Sehome and Whatcom.
The fort officially closed in 1863, and in 1868, the Army returned 320 acres (1.3 km2) to Mrs. Roberts, who lived there for many years thereafter and farmed the land.
[8][9] In 1858, the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush caused thousands of miners, storekeepers, and scalawags to head north from California.
Whatcom grew overnight from a small northwest mill town to a bustling seaport, the basetown for the Whatcom Trail, which led to the Fraser Canyon goldfields, used in open defiance of colonial Governor James Douglas's edict that all entry to the gold colony be made via Victoria, British Columbia.
Coal was originally discovered by Henry Roeder's agents off the northeastern shore of Bellingham Bay.
By this time, Black Diamond had acquired a considerable amount of land around Bellingham Bay, and throughout the next 19 years, Cornwall focused the company's efforts on the sale of its real estate.
[10] The Blue Canyon mine, at the south end of Lake Whatcom, opened in 1891 with solid investment, and supplied lower-grade bituminous coal for the United States Pacific Fleet.
Twenty-three workers died in huge explosion on April 8, 1895, Washington's worst industrial accident to date.
The company was mostly composed of wealthy California businessmen who were investing heavily into Bellingham with the vision that it would one day become an important urban center for commerce and trade.
The BBIC invested in several diverse enterprises such as shipping, coal, mining, railroad construction, real estate sales and utilities.
Even though their dream of turning Bellingham into a Pacific Northwest metropolis never came to fruition, the BBIC made an immense contribution to the economic development of the area.
In 1898 the utility merged into the Northern Railway and Improvement Company which prompted the Electric Corporation of Boston to purchase a large block of shares.
Stone & Webster was also involved in Puget Sound area railways including a considerable amount in Seattle, Tacoma and Everett.
A group of 400-500 white men with intentions to exclude East Indian immigrants from the local work force mobbed waterfront barracks.
On the 100th anniversary of the riots, Bellingham Mayor Tim Douglas proclaimed a "day of healing and reconciliation" in recognition of the event.
[18] The NTSB determined that the probable cause of the accident was the damage done by an IMCO construction crew while conducting modifications to a water treatment plant, but not reported to Olympic or any agency authorities.
