Coupeville

Captain Coupe’s Claim on Penn Cove

Coupeville stands on the south side of Penn Cove on Central Whidbey Island, where 19th-century false-fronted commercial buildings still line Front Street.^2,5 The National Park Service says it is the only town located within Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve.¹

Before settlement, Lower Skagit people built three permanent villages on Penn Cove, the largest of them bah-TSAHD-ah-lee (snake place), where Coupeville now stands.⁴ After the Point Elliott Treaty of 1855, HistoryLink says, many Lower Skagit people were placed on the Tulalip reservation and a few stayed in Coupeville; the National Park Service says the treaty relocated them to what is now the Swinomish Tribal Community in La Conner.^2,4

Sea captains and merchants from New England came for the protected harbor and for timber valued for shipbuilding.² The town was established in the early 1850s after several sea captains who had worked the waters of Puget Sound decided to retire there; Thomas Coupe, captain of the bark Success, settled at Penn Cove in 1852.^3,4 Coupe had startled his peers by sailing a full-rigged ship through Deception Pass, and in 1852 he claimed the 320 acres that later became the town.² His wife, Maria, and their family joined him in 1853, but settler C. H. Ivans claimed the same ground, so Coupe filed on April 3, 1854, and paid Ivans to clear the title.⁴ The Coupe land became the eastern part of the town and John Alexander’s claim the western part.⁴

Blockhouses and the Haller House

Unrest after the treaty signing in January 1855 led Whidbey settlers to build four blockhouses, the murder of the settler Isaac Ebey spurred three more, and four of the seven remain.^2,4 John Alexander, Sr. built one on his claim in about 1855, though its marker says it may have been used instead as a root cellar, and in the 1930s residents moved it beside the Island County Historical Museum.⁶ The Writers’ Program guide to Washington counted the houses of Major Granville O. Haller and Captain Thomas Coupe at Coupeville among the New England Colonial type the settlers brought west.⁷ The Haller House in downtown Coupeville joins a portion built by Raphael Brunn in 1859 to a two-story I-house the Hallers added in 1866.⁸

County Seat and Steamer Port

Coveland, at the head of Penn Cove, held the county seat from 1853 to 1881, when Coupeville took it and began to look like a real town, with more homes, stores, and churches.⁴ Mosquito Fleet steamers ran from Coupeville to Bellingham in the 1890s, and the town prospered from shipbuilding and from shipping fish, produce, lumber, and timber.⁴ John Sprague of the Northern Pacific Railroad bought 20,000 acres in Island County and set off rumors of a West Coast terminus at Coupeville, but the railroad chose Tacoma.⁴

Fort Casey, the Wharf, and Incorporation

Coupeville had about 300 people in 1900 when the opening of Fort Casey in 1901 added a floating population of more than 300 men.⁴ Local merchants and farmers built a 500-foot dock into Penn Cove at the foot of NW Alexander Street in 1905, and in 1906 Howard B. Lovejoy bought the sternwheeler Fairhaven and began runs to Seattle.^4,5 Some residents feared lost farmland and higher taxes, but on April 2, 1910, the town voted 41 to 36 to incorporate and elected Charles H. Lyon mayor.⁹ J. H. Parker, chosen town marshal and street commissioner, got as his first task raking the rocks out of Main Street, and by the end of 1911 Coupeville had telephones and street lights.⁹

From Ferry Landing to Historic District

In the Depression the town used federal funds from the Works Progress Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corp for roads, an extended water system, and its first sewage treatment plant.⁴ The automobile and the completion of Deception Pass Bridge in 1935 ended the water era, and passenger ferry service at Coupeville was suspended in 1936.⁵ Explosive growth in the 1950s and 1960s threatened Whidbey’s rural life, islanders grew more dependent on the Naval Air Station at Oak Harbor for jobs, and between 1953 and 1979 Coupeville annexed 11 times, reaching nearly 700 acres.⁴ In 1967 port commissioners planned a large modern marina, and residents made it clear they did not want one as a backdrop to their new historic district.⁵ About 8,000 acres including the town became the Central Whidbey Island Historic District in 1972 and went on the National Register in 1973, and in 1978 the district joined Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve, which HistoryLink calls the first of its kind in the nation.⁴ Elmer Calhoun bought the wharf in 1909 and added a grain tower, which came down in 1985 when the east end of the wharf building became a marine store and delicatessen.⁵ In 1998 the crew filming Practical Magic painted the entire length of Front Street white, and Coupeville Liquor kept the false front applied to its exterior.¹⁰