La-Conner Travel Guide
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70 miles N of Seattle, 10 miles E of Anacortes, 32 miles S of Bellingham
In a competition for quaintest town in Washington, La Conner would leave the other contenders wallowing in the winter mud. This town, a former fishing village, has a waterfront street lined with restored wooden commercial buildings, back streets of Victorian homes, and acres of tulip and daffodil fields stretching out from the town limits. Add to this three museums, numerous plant nurseries and gardening-related stores, art galleries, luxurious inns, and good restaurants, and you have a town almost too good to be true.
La Conner does, however, have a couple of shortcomings. In the springtime, when the tulips blossom, the town and surrounding country roads are so jammed with cars that it can make a Seattle rush-hour commute seem pleasant. The other drawback is that La Conner is so close to the San Juans that it is hard to justify spending more than a day here when the islands are calling. If, however, you have some free time in your schedule, this town should not be missed.
La Conner dates from a time when Puget Sound towns were connected by water and not by road, and consequently, the town clings to the shore of Swinomish Channel. The town reached a commercial peak around 1900 (when steamers made the run to Seattle) and continued as an important grain- and log-shipping port until the Great Depression. La Conner never recovered from the hard times of the 1930s, and when the highways bypassed the town it became a neglected backwater. The wooden false-fronted buildings built during the town's heyday were spared the waves of progress that swept over the Northwest during the latter half of the 20th century, and today these quaint old buildings give the town its charm.
Beginning in the 1940s, La Conner's picturesque setting attracted several artists and writers. By the 1970s, La Conner had become known as an artists' community, and tourism began to revive the economy. The town's artistic legacy eventually led to the building here of the Museum of Northwest Art, which is dedicated to the region's many contemporary artists.
Adding still more color to this vibrant little town are the commercial flower farms of the surrounding Skagit Valley. In the spring, tulips and daffodils carpet the surrounding farmlands with great swaths of red, yellow, and white. These flowers are grown to supply the fall bulb planting needs of gardeners across the country, and heartbreaking as it sounds, the flowers are cut off in their prime to channel more energy into the bulbs.
One more thing, although the name sounds as if it's a combination of Spanish and Irish, La Conner is actually named for Louisa A. (LA) Conner, who helped found the town in the 1870s.
