Oak Harbor

Understand

Oak Harbor's history goes back to the early 1850s, when two settlers staked claims where the city now stands—Zakarias Martin Taftezon, a shoemaker from Norway; C.W. Sumner from New England Houses and businesses sprouted up along the shores of Oak Harbor as the pioneers relied entirely on water transportation until the 1900s. For the next thirty years, steamers and freighters carried passengers and freight from the Island to the mainland and back as well as Fidalgo Island to the north.

The Irish came in the late 1850s, making Oak Harbor grow and prosper as they fished and farmed the area, and the city's Dutch heritage arrived in the 1890s. Churches, schools, and more businesses followed the arrival of the Dutch. A high school was built in 1906. Oak Harbor flourished as a small country town until Deception Pass Bridge and the U.S. Navy Base connected the city to the rest of the region and the world.

Get in

By boat

By shuttle

Get around

By public transit

By taxi

Go next

• Deception Pass State Park, at the north end of Whidbey Island, is the fast-flowing waterway between Whidbey and Fidalgo Islands, with over 4,100 acres of forest, beaches, campsites, trails, and scenic vistas. During low tides, the swift current can lead to standing waves, large whirlpools, and roiling eddies underneath the historic Deception Pass Bridge.