April 23, 1908
General Manager J.M. Winslow of the Independent Telephone Co., with headquarters in Seattle, has been in all parts of Skagit county the past week directing and rushing work on the various lines which the company is putting up. Mr. Winslow was in Anacortes the latter part of last and first part of this week making arrangements for the completion of the direct line from Anacortes to Mount Vernon. While here he has arranged for the installation of ten phones to be furnished free to the city government under the provisions of the company’s franchise. A great many of the poles and crosstrees for the Anacortes-Mount Vernon line are already in place.

April 25, 1918
Mr. Ryan of the Ryan Fruit company of Everett met with the Summit Park Grange members the last of last week to make arrangements for the shipment of their crop of strawberries. The price paid by the canneries for strawberries, which are second-grade berries, is about six cents a pound, and therefore he thought the price for first-grade fruit would probably average about $1.75 a crate.

April 24, 1958
Preliminary investigation into prospects for acquiring a new and larger hospital for this city have begun under the auspices of Anacortes Hospital Auxiliary, Inc. Need for additional facilities based on growing requirements of the area was described by Mrs. Howard Ferguson, chairman of the Auxiliary’s building committee, as “prime incentive” in present exploratory activities of the local organization.

April 25, 1968
Plans for the development of Skagit Valley Mall, a 60-acre regional shopping center near Mount Vernon were announced this week by Linn C. Alexander, board chairman of Quintana Corporation, San Francisco. The new shopping center will be located between Mount Vernon and nearby Burlington with frontage on both Interstate Freeway 5 and U.S. 99.

April 26, 1978
Evergreen Islands, a local environmental group, wants to enlist the aid of the city council to urge the state Department of Natural Resources to impose a five-year moratorium on development at Heart Lake. The DNR has been considering a long-term lease to a private developer for residential and recreation uses along the lake’s shoreline.

April 22, 1998
SunSystems Inc., a steadily expanding software company that got its start in Anacortes just last year, has an agreement with the Port of Anacortes to buy property on which it plans to build its new home. The Port and SunSystems signed a letter of intent last week for the sale of about eight acres of land just west of South Harbor Park on Port land commonly called South Basin.
— From the archives of the Anacortes American