The first ferry stop out of Anacortes is at Upright Head, Lopez Island. Unlike the other island landings, this one has no cluster of stores around it. The only building in evidence is a restaurant, Upright House, where one can also get ferry tickets and, of course, tourist information. Even this structure is a relative newcomer to the scene; tickets used to be dispensed from a nondescript warehouse on the dock.
The nearest “community,” Port Stanley, has a brisk commerce entirely consisting of Harold Ogden’s machine shop. Landing on Lopez is a little like being put ashore on a desert island. Except for a few evidences of civilization, such as the road and a few telephone wires, Lopez at first seems hardly touched by human hands. One almost wonders if there are inhabitants.
Actually there are about half-a-thousand people living the year around on Lopez. There are no industries to speak of, few stores, no payrolls. There are several excellent resorts, and the Henderson Camps for boys and girls, but these only operate during the summer season. How, then, do people live?
The answer is that Lopez Islanders live much the same as their pioneer fathers and grandfathers did. An astonishingly high percentage of the Lopez population, as a matter of fact, is descended from the first hardy families who settled here nearly a century ago. And now, as then, the best way to make a living on Lopez is to wrest it from the soil, or from the sea.
Farming and fishing are the mainstays of the island. Many residents follow both occupations, operating family-owned gill-net or reef-net boats when the salmon are running, otherwise tending home gardens and raising meat animals.
Lopez is easily the most suitable of the islands for agriculture. The soil is good and the island is fairly level, more so than any of the other large islands in the archipelago. In former years, when it was possible to farm for profit, many prosperous, well-kept farms were operated here. Fruit trees thrive phenomenally: in 1900 one 6-year-old orchard produced 300 boxes of apples, half a ton of cherries, 1500 pounds of prunes, half a ton of plums, and 40 cases of strawberries, all shipped to city markets to command excellent prices.
The same year another orchardist complained his 300 trees were so overloaded with fruit he was kept busy propping up the limbs to keep them from breaking.
Dairying was also profitable on Lopez in former years. The island got its own creamery in 1908 and was sending 1500 pounds of butter a month to Seattle, Bellingham, and Anacortes, the same year.
By 1930 Lopez was shipping 15,000 pounds of cream, along with substantial quantities of eggs, poultry, and other products. There were 134 farms on the island, which was said to have the lowest tax rate in the state, in spite of the high rate of production.
The fishing industry, too, was in high gear during the early part of the century. Some of the catches recorded, even in ordinary years, seem unbelievable today. In an average season forty or fifty outfits, employing more than 400 men, filled the entire bay off the southern coast of Lopez with every conceivable type of craft and took a million to a million and a half fish from the sea. Most of the catch was taken to the mainland for canning. A few companies tried salting and barreling the fish on Lopez, but most found this an unsatisfactory arrangement: the fish invariably came in faster than they could be barreled, which caused thousands of fish to be lost through spoilage.
Old-timers tell of salmon running so thick one could almost walk across San Juan Channel on their backs. Purse seiners occasionally found their nets so heavily loaded the catches could not be lifted into the boats. In 1901, half a million fish spoiled when the industry ran out of salt, barrels, and transportation.
Most of this activity centered around Richardson Bay, where the little village of Richardson became, in season, the busiest port in the San Juans. It was the first landing for many steamers coming from Seattle, and the wharf was always loaded with stacks of cordwood for the puffers’ fires. The town was named for George Richardson, who settled there in 1871. Lopez’ first post office was at Richardson, as was the island’s earliest public hall— a combination church and social center.
Lopez’ second post office was established at the head of Mud Bay on an acre or two of ground donated by a Friday Harbor storekeeper known as “Cap” Edwards. Edwards willed the land, part of his farm, to a man by the name of Hess, who put in a store and succeeded in having a post office established there in 1893. The store did not prosper but the post office remained for some years. Today Edwards has all but vanished, with only a few rotted pilings to mark the location of the former wharf, store and post office.
Port Stanley, at Swift Bay on the northeast shoulder of the island, was established around the turn of the century mainly to provide a post office for residents of the island’s north end. The post office and store building still exists, and has recently been remodeled into a summer home by Neta and Louis Thomas.
The chief community on the island today is the village of Lopez, located on Fisherman Bay on the island’s west coast. Lopez has a post office, grocery store, church, inn, service station, and telephone office—complete with a party line switchboard and “number, please” central operator reminiscent of an era that, for most of us, has long since passed.
Lopez and Shaw Islands are among the few communities in the United States where the old hand-crank telephones have not been replaced with more modern instruments. In fact, quite a few homes are still equipped with the original phones installed when the system was inaugurated back in 1907. At that time it cost each subscriber $15 to get hooked up, including the cost of the instrument, which became his permanent property. The “bill” for service was $6 a year.
Lopez got into trouble with Uncle Sam over their community phone system in 1905. The cable from Orcas and San Juan came by way of Shaw and Canoe Islands, and the area opposite Canoe was at that time a military reservation. The company applied to the U. S. Engineers’ office in Seattle for permission to cross the reservation with their lines, and assuming the permission would be granted, set about to place the poles and string wires while the request was still going through channels.
When the government found out what had been done, they refused to take action on the request until the phone company took down the wires, removed the poles, and filled the holes where the poles had been. When this was done, the government promptly approved the request, and poles and lines had to be erected all over again.
One of the most successful farming operations was carried on north of Lopez by I. J. Lichtenberg, whose farm, including 500 acres of orchards and 800 acres of cultivated land, was known as “Gem Farm.” Judge Lichtenberg was wounded in the Civil War battle of the Wilderness, and carried the lead in his legs for years. He settled in Seattle in 1887, and was the first Superior Court Judge of King County when the Territory became a state. He retired to Lopez and established Gem Farm there in 1897.
Lichtenberg’s son, Ben, sailed the San Juan waters in a naphtha-burning launch which everyone thought was bound, sooner or later, to roast him alive, but never did. Later, in Prohibition days, Ben joined the Revenue Service and commanded the venerable launch Scout, which, as has already been noted, was too slow for its purpose and which rum-runners periodically and gleefully punctured with bullet holes to show their contempt.
Today the waters around Lopez are navigated by other kinds of craft. In the summertime Mud Bay and Lopez Sound ring with the voices of youngsters from the Henderson camps, located on the island’s “big toe” at Lopez Pass. The camps go in strong for Indian lore, with expert counselors to make sure it is all done with as much authenticity as possible. Colorful “potlatches” are held in an Indian house, a careful replica of the ceremonial houses built by the Kwakiutls of British Columbia.