San Juan Island's History
The History of San Juan Islands
When the first Spanish ships explored the San Juan Archipelago in 1791, they encountered a native Coast Salish community that had inhabited the islands for over 9000 years.
While the English followed closely behind the Spanish in charting the waters of the San Juan Islands, neither country began actively settling the islands.
It wasn’t until the Hudson Bay Company established the first non-native outpost on the islands in 1850 (at present day Eagle Cove) that the British first laid claim to the islands.
The Americans officially challenged this claim in 1859 when an American settler, Lyman Cutlar, found one of the British settlers pigs in his garden digging up his potatos and shot it dead.
Threats from both sides ensued, and quickly escalated to the point of both countries establishing military camps on San Juan Island.
The next 11 years resulted in a peaceful military stand-off, during which time the Islands’ fishing and farming economies continued to grow.
In 1872 both the British and Americans agreed to arbitrate the dispute, and Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany ruled in the Americans favor.
Friday Harbor was incorporated as the new county’s first town in 1909, and is still the only incorporated town in the county (San Juan County).
During the early 1900’s the town and county flourished economically, as fishing, logging, and the vast lime reserves that had been found throughout the islands were actively mined.
The boom lasted about 30 years, when lime deposits started to disappear and transportation improvements on the mainland made shipping produce via water too expensive.
Population in 1910 reached 3600 county-wide, and remained virtually the same for the next 50 years. Tourism has grown steadily since 1960, as has the local population; today San Juan County has over 16,000 year round residents.
Today the islands’ economy is primarily tourism based, with construction related activities coming in a close second. |
 San Juan Valley: Fog crawls across the San Juan Valley in the winter
Horse with typical San Juan Island scenery
 San Juan Valley on San Juan Island - cows grazing in the far background
 The rural nature of San Juan Island - sheep
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