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One of Anacortes High School's most celebrated graduates would have to be Craig Bartlett, animator and creator of multiple children's television shows that have aired everywhere from PBS to Nickelodeon. He even created a multi-media simulator attraction for NASA's Kennedy Space Center. His breakout and arguably biggest show, 1996's "Hey Arnold!" centered on an inner-city kid living with his grandparents in a boarding house. The show has received worldwide acclaim and become a major part of many's childhoods.

Anacortes Presbyterians held their first Anacortes service in a "gospel tent" on the last Sabbath of 1890, and built their first church (now the Croatian Cultural Center) at 5th and R in 1891. But it was on this date in 1915 that the members of the parish really set their foundation in stone, when they laid the cornerstone for the iconic Westminster Presbyterian Church. The congregation celebrated their last Sunday service in the old church on May 14, 1916 - the 25th anniversary of that building's dedication - and had their first service in the new brick church the following Sunday.

It's hard to imagine the Anacortes waterfront without the ever present figure of the refinery in the background. A job opportunity for some, subject of controversy for others, the metal city on March's Point is nevertheless an iconic Anacortes sight. Its first manager Rulan W. McOmie is shown in the far left of the attached image.

202 U Avenue has had many lives. Starting in the 1880's it was first a mill built by Bowman and Company, in 1905 the mill was taken over by the Anacortes Lumber and Box Company - that is until it burned down in 1941. A year later in 42 Anacortes Shipways bought the property. During this period, Ray Robinson Jr. began to build "Robinson's Marina". The property would eventually get sold to the Port of Anacortes in 1965 though, and then leased to Neil J. Murphy in 1969. Murphy renamed the property, now calling it "Murphy's Marina." However his claim to the site would not last long as the lease would move to Don and Rayetta Wyman in 1973. The property would bear this name for 40 more years until recently in 2013, when The Port of Anacortes finally decided to put the site to rest, beginning the demolition of the Marina on October 13th, 2013. Today it is an aquatic habitat, and is probably enjoying the time off.

Nearly 300 feet of historic railroad trestle burned over Fidalgo Bay on October 15th, 2009. The landmark had bridged Anacortes with March Point since 1889, and had been renovated and added to the Tommy Thompson Trail only three years earlier. The community wasn't going to let the bridge go. Through a large scale campaign of donation and volunteerism, the bridge was rebuilt by May of the next year.

Over three thousand gathered in and around Anacortes to celebrate the first Puget Sound Indian Fair in 1930. The weekend long celebration was filled with dances, activities, the selling of crafts and foods, and banquets. The big event of the weekend was the La Conner war canoe race, in which the canoe, "Telegraph," was "defeated for the first time in a great many years," by rival canoe, "The Cyclone."

Journalists Wallie Funk and John Webber owned the Anacortes American from 1950 to 1964. They published their first issue together on June 1, 1950. Early in their publishing career, the two fraternity brothers had a radical idea: expanding the American to add a four-day-a-week tabloid, "The American Bulletin." Journalistic peers called the move "insane" and spoke of Anacortes as "the boneyard of Washington state journalism." Despite all this, the Bulletin stayed in publication until 1962, when the Scripps League syndicate bought the Anacortes American operation.