History & Culture

There are many ways to explore hands on history in the Reserve. Visit with our State Park and Island County partners below for more information. (These links will take you outside our website.)
 

Visit With Our Partners

  • people explore the battlements at fort casey
    Fort Casey State Park

    Fort Casey Historical State Park is home to the Admiralty head lighthouse, WWII history, and sweeping views of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

  • Trailhead sign at Fort Ebey
    Fort Ebey State Park

    Fort Ebey was the built as part of a World War II defense network. Today it is also home to extensive hiking and biking trails.

  • historic photo of child looking at the ocean.
    Island County Museum

    The Island County Historical Society and Museum is located in downtown Coupeville and allows you to explore the rich history of the island.

 

Scroll down for an overview of Reserve History

First Settlement
Vancouver and Exploration
The Ebey Family
Military History
 


First Settlement

As early as 1300, the Skagit Indians had established permanent villages on the shores of Penn Cove. The island provided an abundance of natural resources —salmon, bottom fish, shellfish, berries, small game, deer, and water fowl. The Indians cultivated the prairies with selective burning, transplanting, and mulching to encourage the growth of favored root crops like bracken fern and camas. When the first western explorers came to central Whidbey Island, they found a land tempered by centuries of human settlement and habitation. When the first western explorers came to central Whidbey Island, they found a land tempered by centuries of human settlement and habitation. More than 1500 Native Americans were recorded in the area in 1790. By 1904, with most of the Indian population from around Coupeville relocated to the reservation in LaConner, the local tribal population was reduced to a few small families.

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Vancouver and Exploration

Whidbey Island was named by explorer Captain George Vancouver in honor of Lieutenant Joseph Whidbey, who explored the island in 1792. Vancouver's well-publicized exploration of Puget Sound helped prepare the way for settlers to the area. A more important inducement was the Donation Land Law of 1850, which offered free land in Oregon Territory to any citizen who would homestead the land for four years. Newcomers flocked to the fertile prairies of central Whidbey Island and, within three short years, had carved out irregularly-shaped claims that followed the lay of the best land. Today, this early settlement pattern can still be seen by the fence lines, roads, and ridges of the Reserve.

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The Ebey Family

Colonel Isaac Neff Ebey was among the first of the permanent settlers to the island. Upon the advice of his friend Samuel Crockett, Ebey came west from his home in Missouri in search of land. Both men had filed donation claims on central Whidbey by the spring of 1851. Ebey wrote home, enthusiastically urging his family to join him.

Ebey's family soon emigrated to the island. The simple home of Isaac's father Jacob, and a blockhouse he erected to defend his claim against Indians, still stand today overlooking the prairie that bears the family name. As for Isaac, he became a leading figure in public affairs, but his life was cut short in 1857, when he was slain by northern coastal Indians seeking revenge for the killing of one of their own chieftains.

Today some farmers of Central Whidbey still plow donation land claims established by their families in the 1850s. Their stewardship of the rich alluvial soil preserves a historic pattern of land use centuries old.

Fertile farmland was not the only incentive to settlement. Sea captains and merchants from New England were drawn to the protected harbor of Penn Cove and the stands of tall timber valued for shipbuilding. Many brought their families and took up donation claims along the shoreline. One colorful seafaring man was Captain Thomas Coupe, who startled his peers by sailing a full-rigged ship through treacherous Deception Pass on the north end of the island. In 1852, Coupe claimed 320 acres which later became the town of Coupeville on the south shore of the cove.

The early success of central Whidbey's farming and maritime trade transformed Coupeville into a dominant seaport. The past remains apparent in Coupeville today, with its many 19th-century false-fronted commercial buildings on Front Street, its historic wharf and blockhouse, and its rich collection of Victorian residential architecture.

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Military History

The military introduced another layer of history to the landscape of central Whidbey, with the construction of Fort Casey Military Reservation in the late 1890s. Built on the bluff above Admiralty Head, Fort Casey was part of a three-fort defense system designed to protect the entrance to Puget Sound.

The first contingent of U.S. Army troops reported for duty in 1900, and eventually numbered 400. The fort became a social center for the surrounding community, hosting ball games, dances, and other social events. Today, the handsome wood-framed officers' quarters, the gun escarpments, Admiralty Head Lighthouse, and other remnants of military history still stand at old Fort Casey.

Near the north boundary of the Reserve is Fort Ebey, a remnant of the defensive build-up of World War Two.

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Last updated: February 23, 2021

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Mailing Address:

PO Box 774
Coupeville, WA 98239

Phone:

360 678-6084

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