Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Harris Avenue

Road workers fix up Harris Avenue

Harris Avenue is the main street running east/west in Fairhaven. I'm pretty sure it's the oldest paved street in Fairhaven, and possibly Bellingham, but I couldn't corroborate that. It's a picturesque avenue, with brick going down the center and textured concrete on either side, ridged so the horses' hooves of days gone by could get a good grip on the hilly slopes. Hopefully whatever work these guys are doing will leave Harris Avenue unblemished.

Harris Avenue has a rich history, and it's fun to wander down the street and read the informational plaques embedded along the way. Among them are "Chinese Deadline - No Chinese allowed beyond this point 1898-1908" and "Unknown dead man displayed here 1901". It allows you to see past the charm and quaintness of modern-day Fairhaven and picture it as the rough-and-tumble wild west town it really was. For a complete listing of the plaques and the history behind them, see this article in Klipsun, the magazine from Western Washington University. The picture below is one of the plaques, obviously off the beaten path on one of the offshoots of the Interurban trail.


6 comments:

  1. A street full of history. Wonder who Dirty Dan was?

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  2. Isn't that an interesting bit of history. In Hartford, history would be the day Buffy cried upon learning that Lawrence didn't get into Yale!

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  3. That sounds like a really interesting place. I hope the street isn't changed too much. The roads around the courthouse square in the town where I grew up are still brick, and I love going back there and thinking about how many generations have walked upon it.

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  4. looks like most of London streets at present

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  5. Wow that was an interesting post. Nice photo too.

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  6. I love the juxtaposition between the colorful shot of modern road workers and then the B&W of the Dirty Dan marker. Wonderful.

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