Call your sales representative today 360-675-6611
Enjoy your newly redesigned Whidbey News Group shopper.
Place an ad to reach over 16,750 Oak Harbor readers!
Whidbey Xtra! WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2016 | Vol. 1, No. 37 | WWW.WHIDBEYNEWSTIMES.COM | FREE
New ebook chronicles Coupeville’s transformation By RON NEWBERRY
rnewberry@whidbeynewsgroup.com
In between Coupeville’s start as a bustling seaport in the 19th century to present-day tourist destination was a stagnant period when activity slowed to a crawl on Front Street. “I grew up in Port Townsend,” said Rick Castellano, executive director of the Island County Historical Society Museum. “When we were kids, we’d get on the ferry and ride our bikes over here to go see the ghost town in the early 60s. Everything was dead.” Coupeville’s historic waterfront has experienced a dramatic revival in the last half century. The town’s success story, as well as its struggles along the way, are chronicled in a new ebook released recently by the museum. The ebook is a collection of 101 inter views conducted by Coupeville historian Judy Lynn, who spoke to present and former Front Street business and property owners as well as other notable community figures historically connected to downtown. The interviews initially led to a book about Coupeville, published in 2012. The depth of the information, however, prompted the idea of producing an ebook with search capabilities to aid in
Photo by Ron Newberry
Judy Lynn stands on the porch of a structure built in 1864 that has been a home, restaurant, gallery, shop and is now a spa on Front Street. research of the state’s secondoldest town. The ebook, “Front Street, Coupeville — An Oral History,” is being sold on Amazon for $9.99 for a Kindle application and the Apple Store for iBooks. Proceeds benefit the museum. “The focus is Front Street mer-
chants and memories of others who lived here over the years and how Front Street has changed,” Castellano said. “There’s a wealth of information in these interviews — how Coupeville has evolved over the years from a bustling seaport to kind of an agricultural shipping center, and then was
XTRA SPECIAL!
kind of forgotten about. It almost became a ghost town, then starting with the Arts and Crafts Festival in the 1960s, it started back up again and started resurging. Look at where we are now, and it still looks like Coupeville.” L ynn’s research was gathered from 2008-2012. She got
Present this coupon for
ONE ADDITIONAL MONTH FREE* on a paid one-year subscription
*Not to be combined with any other offers. No cash value.
the idea to start conducting and recording such interviews after listening to stories from Rose Brosseau, former owner of The Six Persimmons restaurant who Lynn referred to as an “institution on Front Street.” Lynn set up a joint interview with Brosseau and another downtown merchant, Shirley Bennett. “One day, I called Shirley and said, ‘I’d like to record you and Rose together,’” Lynn said. “We went to Freeland and did that and got both of their histories. Four days later, Rose died. In a nick of time, I got Rose. I could say that about quite a few people who have gone ahead. But we got their stories.” The interviews give insight into what life was like on Whidbey Island in different time periods and some of the challenges people faced. Leone Argent shared with Lynn how she came to the island by way of her parents’ Model-T from Colorado in 1918, crossing Deception Pass on a scow pulled by a tugboat. Argent’s mother, Clara Libbey, was born in Coupeville and was homesick. Lynn conducted five interviews with Argent before she passed at the age of 101 in March of 2014. The transcripts also reveal oddities and interesting facts SEE EBOOK, PAGE 3