Changing uses of the shoreline: The Coupeville wharf

 

A few weeks ago during a brief ice cream stop-over in Coupeville, Washington, I spent a few minutes appreciating the nice little wharf that is a central feature of town.  The wharf appears to be primarily given over to tourist use, and the building at the end features public restrooms, and a few small shops.  A quick bit of time online, though, revealed that this view I was enjoying was yet another prime example of the changing uses of Washington's shorelines that feature in previous posts.  In particular, I found this 1933 photo of the wharf on the Port of Coupeville website:

The wharf was built in 1905 and, not surprisingly, supported the transportation needs of a variety of industries for many decades.  In the photo above, for example, a grain tower is visible on the left side (photo perspective) of the building, to support the loading of grain, and the wharf also acted as a ferry landing until the Deception Pass Bridge was built in the 1930's.  It wasn't until the mid 1980's that the wharf slowly started to transition into something more like a tourist destination.  The Port of Coupeville's website also features a really nice history of this wharf, and its changing uses through time - nearly all of the information for this post came from that site.