Brief History
The earliest known settlement was a Northwest Coast Salish village at the south end of the lake, occupied by the Saquantch tribe. Around 1800 the Saquantch were pushed out by the Lummi tribe. In the 1850s is the first known settlement of Westerners to Lake Whatcom. The first claim of private land was reported for $8. Most of the area surrounding the lake was extensively logged by the end of the 19th century. Large mining operations also existed near the lake from the late 19th century through 1919, when the Whatcom Mining Company closed down. In 1946 J.H. Donovan donates 12.5 acres to the city for what would eventually become Bloedel Donovan Park. In 1962 water is diverted from the Middle Fork of the Nooksack to augment water levels.
Read more about this topic: Lake Whatcom
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized—the question involuntarily arises—to what principle, to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have been offered.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)