La Conner is a town in Skagit County, Washington, United States with a population of 891 at the 2010 census. Take a look below for 15 fascinating and interesting facts about La Conner, Washington, United States.
1. It is included in the Mount Vernon–Anacortes, Washington Metropolitan Statistical Area.
2. In the month of April, the town annually hosts the majority of the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival events.
3. The center of town, ”the Hill,” roughly bounded by Second, Morris and Commercial Streets and the Swinomish Channel, is a historic district and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
4. La Conner was first settled in May 1867 by Alonzo Low and was then known by its post office name, Swinomish. Its location on the Swinomish channel was an ideal safe harbor for ships.
5. In 1869, J.S. Conner bought the settlement’s trading post and in 1870 had the name changed to honor his wife, Louisa Ann Conner. The French-appearing “La” represented her first and middle initials.
6. When Skagit County was created out of Whatcom County in 1883, La Conner was chosen as the county seat, but would only hold that designation until November 1884 when the seat was moved to Mt. Vernon.
7. La Conner is located at the coordinates 48°23′26″N 122°29′44″W (48.390495, −122.495646).
8. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 0.51 square miles (1.32 km2), of which, 0.41 square miles (1.06 km2) is land and 0.10 square miles (0.26 km2) is water.
9. La Conner’s Rainbow bridge connects La Conner to Fidalgo Island, which includes the gated Shelter Bay Community, the Swinomish reservation, and the city of Anacortes.
10. The center of town—roughly bounded by 2nd, Morris, and Commercial streets and Swinomish Channel—is a historic district, listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). Also on the NRHP is the Bethsaida Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Church Parsonage east of town.
11. Author Tom Robbins is a long-time resident of La Conner. Many of his books, most notably Another Roadside Attraction, have chapters set in the vicinity.
12. Pacific Northwest photographer Art Hupy (1924–2003) settled in La Conner in 1977 and founded the Museum of Northwest Art in 1981. Many influential Northwest artists including Guy Anderson, Clayton James, and Barbara Straker James have close ties to La Conner.
13. Radical labor activist Hulet M. Wells (1878–1970), a 1912 Socialist candidate for mayor of Seattle, president of the Seattle Central Labor Council, and founder in 1931 of the Unemployed Citizens’ League of Seattle was born in a cabin near La Conner, where his Canadian-born parents homesteaded in 1877.
14. Jailed at McNeil Island Penitentiary for his opposition to World War I, Wells was one of the leading public faces of Washington radicalism during the first decades of the 20th century.
15. Joe Shell (born in La Conner in 1918) is a former member and floor leader of the California State Assembly and was the intraparty opponent of Richard M. Nixon for the California Republican gubernatorial nomination in 1962. His father was an Indian agent at the time on the Swinomish Reservation.
