Sept. 3, 1908
Governor Mead visited Anacortes last Thursday evening and addressed an audience of about 300 persons in the Anacortes opera house.... Mr. Mead is a good speaker, but his arguments are not convincing with respect to his record, while his effort to explain the reason why he broke his word with Skagit county in the location of the Soldiers’ home was very flimsy and unsatisfactory. His local option talk sounded like a Prohibition stump speech, and immediately afterward Mr. Mead joined with a convivial bunch of the local gentlemen at the Taylor hotel until midnight, possibly drinking Zaremba water.

Sept. 6, 1928
Miss Betty Lowman, 14, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Ray Lowman, added another honor to her crown of laurels Tuesday, when she swam Guemes channel in 30 minutes. She was followed by her father in a boat, and swam from the Northern Cannery dock to the Guemes Ferry dock. She came back in a launch, dressed and went on to school.

Sept. 2, 1948
Arrangements have been completed for all draft registrants to register in Anacortes at the Red Cross offices in the basement of the city’s Federal Building, it was announced this week by Mayor Joe L. Hagan. This will save all young Anacortes men who have to register for the draft a trip to the Armory in Mount Vernon where the local draft was originally scheduled to be set up.

Sept. 4, 1958
President of the Anacortes High School Class of ‘58, Gary Tarbox performs his last official duty as an office holder. He is pictured with a container to be opened by members of the class at their 25th reunion in 1983. It is to be filled with photographs, a high school annual, newspaper clippings and other memorabilia.

Sept. 5, 1968
The city of Anacortes has filed suit for condemnation of land, property and property rights against a number of property owners for the urban renewal of a blighted area. Named are Gladys Senff, Anna May Brenner, Rose Matthies, George Havekost and Herman Havekost. Also named is the Seattle and Northern Railroad now known as Great Northern Railway Co., and all unknown claimants.

Sept. 6, 1978
The Everett man who died of hypothermia after being pulled out of the water recently may have been trying to swim the Guemes Channel, according to a Coast Guard investigating officer. Lt. Commander Larry Craig, senior investigating officer for the Coast Guard Marine Inspection Office, theorizes that the victim arrived at the Guemes ferry terminal following the ferry’s final run, parked his car outside the gate, climbed the fence, took a life preserver off the ferry and then tried to swim the channel.

Sept. 2, 1998
An unexpected surge of new students is at the schoolhouse doors. As of last week, Anacortes elementary schools had already enrolled 145 more students than the district expected, about a 9 percent increase. At the middle school and high school, the district already has more than 70 students over its earlier estimates.

Sept. 7, 1988
Although “nothing completely clear-cut” emerged from the testing of oil deposits found in sediments taken last month from the sea bottom in various area waterways, the tests did result in the deaths of the oyster larvae used as guinea pigs, said a spokesman for the state Department of Ecology this week.

Sept. 5, 1918
Fire Chief J.S. Carter and Street Commissioner O.A. Lenning are painting the town red today. On every corner where there is a fire hydrant they are putting two red marks on the sidewalk, one thirty-four feet each side of the hydrant. No automobiles or teams may stand between these lines. This will keep the hydrants accessible at all times in case of fire.

— From the archives of the Anacortes American