Standing on Harris Avenue one can only imagine what a stroll around Fairhaven was like in the bustling years before the turn of the century. In 1889 two hundred teams and wagons were imported to clear the land. Twenty thousand pounds of blasting powder were brought in by boat and men were sought all over the west.

Hundreds of workers waded the muddy streets building hotels, homes, office buildings, and a railroad. One million bricks were ordered from the Happy Valley brickyard and even then, brick had to be imported from Japan.

In little over a year, Fairhaven had thirty-five new hotels and lodging houses, but men were still forced to sleep in tents and build driftwood shelters on the beach until more housing could be constructed. Along with three hundred new people that arrived each month, came gamblers and prostitutes. Until May of 1890, there was no police force, so the local businessmen formed their own vigilante group and used a beached scow for a jailhouse. After May, real law came to Fairhaven when Judge Samuel Curry established a court in his real estate office along with a Canadian Pacific ticket agent.

If 12^th Street contained the business and brains of Old Fairhaven, 11^th Street held much of the city's soul. Harris and 11^th were the main roads of Fairhaven. Whereas 12^th street had eleven real estate offices, 11^th Street had four restaurants, seven saloons, a concert garden, and an opera house, which seated 500 people.

In 1889, over a thousand men, 200 wagons and the appropriate number of horses were brought into Fairhaven to help with the building of roads and the construction of the new Fairhaven and Southern Railway which ran along 9^th Street and eventually ended near the Sedro-Woolley mines.

Overnight, McKenzie Avenue became the red light district. Nearly thirty dirt and wood floor saloons lined McKenzie, 11^th, and Harris. Girls as young as 13 years old arrived and filled the bordellos and by late 1890, thirty-six hotels and lodging houses had been built.

Things have quieted considerably in the Fairhaven since the days of the weekly cattle drives up Harris to the 11^th street slaughterhouse- the days when proper women were forbidden to walk below 9^th street unescorted, and loud brass bands met each incoming ship.

Today, most of the life of Fairhaven has left the wild, wood-planked streets and become the warm, cordial community we see today. But the old days of Fairhaven will not easily be forgotten.