Mayor C.E. Peters appoints city's first nine-member planning commission; zoning of downtown is group's first order of business.
Anacortes census
shows nearly 6,000 population here following a Lion's Club contest; Puget Sound Power and Light estimates it's closer to 6,500.
Three local firms are busy with defense contracts due to the war
in Europe. Morrison Mill is supplying airplane spruce; E.K. Woods and Puget Sound Pulp and Timber mills also are busy.
Federally ordered alien registration begins here; first registered
include: two Japanese, one British, one Canadian, one Austrian. All aliens must register by the end of the year.
Scott Paper Co. buys Puget Sound Pulp and Timber Co. for $425,000.
In
Anacortes, 671 local men must register with the Selective Service Act. Local photographer Leland B. Jones is picked as draft registrant No. 1; Dick Tasovac is No. 671.
1941
Fire
destroys Anacortes Lumber Co.'s box factory and planing mill; the company's sawmill was destroyed in 1938 and rebuilt.
More than 250 men will be stationed at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island in
a $3.79 million project to build a seaplane base, beating out bid by Anacortes.
Four Anacortes salmon canneries are running overtime to handle the best salmon run since 1919.
On Dec. 9
Anacortes joins all Pacific coast and Puget Sound cities in first wartime blackout following Dec. 7 attack on Pearl Harbor. Total blackout is required from 11 p.m. to dawn.
Arthur Donald
Blackrud, 23, is reported as the first Anacortes casualty of World War II. He was killed at Pearl Harbor, and he had attended Anacortes High School before enlisting in the Navy.
1942
Anacortes is included in Military Zone 1, a designation that forbids any Japanese, even U.S.-born, from residing in the zone.
Safeway announces construction of a new store at 10th Street and
Commercial Ave.
More than 7,000 persons register here for sugar rationing program. Twenty-five tons of scrap metal collected in "Salvage for Victory" drive; 1,600 homes visited in
"Minutewoman" bond drive, gaining pledges for $136,016.
Gas rationing begins in Anacortes.
The entire 1942 salmon pack is set aside by the War Production Board for military and
Lend-Lease use.
War Production Board orders closure of Anacortes Pulp Co. to conserve materials.
1943
Anacortes High School offers "commando class" to prepare boys for
eventual military basic training. 8 Anacortes Shipways, with 689 on payroll, launches the largest wooden boat made in the U.S. since World War I. The "Western Larch" is a 280-foot
ocean-going barge (towed) and displaces 4,000 tons. Contract calls for five more such barges, all going to the Army.
Twelve babies are born at Anacortes Hospital in a single week, an unofficial
record.
1944
A total of 760 men and women from Anacortes are now serving in the American military.
Of the 31 boys scheduled for graduation soon at Anacortes High School, 21 have
already enlisted in the military and the rest expect to go in the next few months.
Democrats win 2-to-1 in the recent general election. Anacortes votes 1,966 for Roosevelt; 943 for Dewey.
1945
Eight Anacortes soldiers are reported to be prisoners of war held by the Japanese.
The Anacortes American lists the names of 750 Anacortes soldiers who served during World War II
following the end of the war with Japan.
Anacortes witnesses "the greatest fish year since 1911," with an average daily haul of pink salmon running at 100,000 fish at Fisherman's
Packing Co. plant.
The unofficial count of Anacortes men who died in World War II stands at 16. Albert James Grey is now listed as the first killed, at Pearl Harbor.
1946
Petitions
circulate seeking the paving of Commercial Avenue from 11th Street to 37th Street.
AHS football coach Richard Wooten cancels team practice when 90 percent of the team is called in to the
canneries to handle an unprecedented salmon run. More than 300,000 sockeye were unloaded in one day recently.
The schooner "Wawona" returns from the Bering Sea with 350,000 pounds of
cod for owner Robinson Fisheries.
State Lands Commissioner says no to timber-cutting at Heart Lake. Anacortes "will find this state forest a useful and interesting playground,"
he says.
War Memorial Field is dedicated during the Anacortes-Mount Vernon football game. The city's 20 war dead from World War II are honored.
1947
Marineer's Pageant returns to
Anacortes, the first since World War II began; Gov. Mon Wallgren leads the parade.
Anacortes City Hall moves into the local community building, formerly the Elks' home. 8 Washington state
census pegs Anacortes' population at 7,000; Mount Vernon is 4,920; Burlington, 2,257; Sedro-Woolley, 3,300.
Guemes Island resident Joe St. Andre renews push for electrical service to Guemes
Island at chamber of commerce meeting; 100 families reside there all year now.
1948
Archie Brown, killed in the invasion of Europe, is laid to rest in Grandview Cemetery. He is the
first of 18 men believed killed in action to be returned home.
Ground is broken for Central Grade School.
Anacortes Veneer Inc. announces plans to build $500,000 "hard board"
plywood plant here.
Anacortes Kiwanis Club purchases 40-acre tract at the top of Mount Erie for $400; public access is pledged.
1949
The electricity is turned on for Guemes Island.
Anacortes will remain on standard time, refusing to join the rest of the nation on Daylight Savings Time and marking a victory by area farmers over commercial and industrial supports of DST.
J.H. Havekost, 87, dies after 70 years in Anacortes. Member of pioneer family that included an uncle memorialized atop a hill at Washington Park, he remembered hunting bears and cougar on Fidalgo
Island.
