Historical roots of La Conner News
“We take off our hat to the people of this town, and thank them most heartily for the very cordial and liberal encouragement extended. The publisher shall use every possible effort to prove worthy of their friendship and patronage.”
Although the sentiment remains true today, these words are not those of the La Conner Community News publisher on the occasion of the first print edition but of James A. Power writing in the Puget Sound Mail’s inaugural issue from La Conner on Sept. 13, 1879.
Six years before, Power had started his paper in Whatcom, one of four towns that later combined into Bellingham. Then, enthusiasm and expectation were high that the Northern Pacific Railroad might locate its terminus at Bellingham Bay. Instead, the transcontinental line chose Tacoma, and Power took his paper to the more promising La Conner, only a dozen years old.
Much has changed
Three dollars bought a year’s subscription to the weekly paper; 30 dollars could get 1,000 board feet of cedar milled at the Fidalgo Saw Mill; the steamer Chehalis carried the mail to and from La Conner twice a week; and Skagit County did not yet exist, something Power helped change in 1883 as a member of the state Council (now Senate) that sliced Skagit County from Whatcom.
Yet scanning that first issue of the Mail published in La Conner finds familiar themes across nearly 15 decades, too.
Then as now, La Conner and Skagit County depended on natural resources, commerce, and connections. Topping it off was a commitment to quality information necessary for a thriving civic life.
Farming came first
The Mail anticipated that in a week or so a dozen steam threshers would be at work and would continue for more than a month to complete the harvest. Farmers with names familiar to modern Skagitonians — Conner, Whitney, Calhoun — led the harvest. Each of these threshers could turn out 1,500 bushels, or 30 tons, per day. The paper reported that the 10,000 acres of grain “within view of the town hall of La Conner” would yield between one and one and a half tons per acre. This agricultural bounty and required legal notices about homesteads offered evidence of farming success through the territory.
To expand the agricultural potential of the valley, marshes had to be drained. Sixty men were soon headed to the valley to drain the Olympia Marsh, reported the Mail. Divided up, the cost of $12,000 to $15,000 amounted to “a comparative trifle.” The enterprise is a good reminder of the labor and engineering requirements needed to create and maintain farmland in Skagit.
Until the marshes were drained, though, John Conner, the town’s founder, advertised wagons for sale for $75 that were “peculiarly adapted to marsh lands.”
Farming was not all that drove the local economy.
Conner was also developing a coal mine. He anticipated sending 100 tons to Portland the following month. Tests in a local forge showed the coal to be fine quality. The Mail office used it and found it “burns brightly and gives perfect satisfaction.”
News items showed a budding timber economy nearby, but gold mining was discouraging. Worse, the salmon business in 1879 was going to be at least a partial failure, according to packers from Mukilteo where the first cannery on Puget Sound opened only two years before.
The report from Mukilteo hinted at La Conner’s connections. News stories and, even more, the advertisements showed La Conner residents oriented throughout Puget Sound and beyond, a reminder that travel in the 1870s was easier by water than land.
Businesses from Portland paid for ads in the Mail, as did merchants closer to home from Seattle, Sehome, and Semiahmoo. La Conner proprietors from boatbuilders and machinists to attorneys and a “tonsorial artist” (i.e., a barber) offered their services, too.
Places to trade and to lodge dominated the local ads.
The Gaches brothers offered all sorts of goods and promised “liberal advances made on consignments of grain,” while the Swinomish Store had become strictly a cash business but assured the public the lowest prices.
Meanwhile, visitors had their choice of hotels that included, depending on one’s preferences, bars and billiard tables or no liquor and reading rooms.
Early La Conner aimed not only to meet material needs but also to keep people informed.
The Mail’s front page shared with Skagitonians news far from the Swinomish Channel. Election reports from across the country and news dispatches from around the world told of uprisings in India, fires in Russia, labor troubles in Great Britain, and market reports from San Francisco.
Closer to home, the Mail kept its eye on government expenses. The immediate question was whether the local courts were sufficient or if criminal matters needed to be directed to Port Townsend or Seattle, a more expensive prospect. A close eye on the public purse started early.
The paper overlooked things nearby, too. No mention of the Swinomish or other Coast Salish communities appeared. On the front page, it recounted the latest news from Idaho in what is typically considered the last war against tribes in the Pacific Northwest, titling the story, “The Hostiles Defeated.” Almost no women appeared in the pages other than unnamed wives in two birth announcements and a Seattle bride who married a local man. Broadly inclusive coverage waited for another day.
After Power relocated his newspaper and settled in at La Conner, he thanked Capt. J. C. Brittain, the proprietor of two local steamers for “courtesies extended.” The captain had not charged Power to move the press the previous week. Brittain understood “that newspaper business is not a very profitable one, and is worthy of certain little favors not in strict accordance with business principles.”
What was true then is true now. Newspapers reflect and shape their communities, creating value beyond the balance sheet.
The first issue of La Conner-based Puget Sound Mail contained a bit of everything and opens a window to the community’s vibrant past. The newspaper continued until 1982.
Adam M. Sowards is a writer and Pacific Northwest historian. The author of several award-winning books, Sowards grew up in the region and has lived in Skagit Valley since 2021.
