Joseph Whidbey State Park History

Joseph Whidbey State Park preserves beach and woods on the western side of Whidbey Island, with which it shares the name of the colonial navigator who charted the island.

Glacial Debris

Around 17,000 years ago, a lobe of the continental ice sheet filled most of today’s Salish Sea basin during its last major advance into the region. The ice reached a thickness of nearly 4,000 feet in the area of today’s park before beginning to melt. Around 13,000 years ago warming temperatures caused the ice to melt, leaving behind all of the sand, gravel, and clay that had been locked within the ice for thousands of years. Whidbey Island’s prairies, bluffs and beaches all owe their forms to this pile of debris from long ago.

Indigenous Lands

Joseph Whidbey State Park lies within the traditional territories of Coast Salish Indigenous people whose present-day descendants include members of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, Tulalip Tribes, Suquamish Tribe and Lummi Nation. For thousands of years this area has provided habitat for a diverse community of life that forms the basis of their cultures. The area around Joseph Whidbey State Park had a large Indigenous population density into historical times. Nearby Oak Harbor is well protected from winter storms and has highly productive marine resources. An oak and grassland prairie that included today’s park area and stretched southeastward into today’s Swantown neighborhood was a rich source of Indigenous plant resources, including camas and other bulbs, bracken fern roots, berries and nuts. Indigenous people periodically burned the prairie to maintain its productivity. 

Local tribes ceded ownership of the area to the US federal government under duress in the Treaty of Point Elliot in 1855, keeping rights to harvest natural resources in their usual and accustomed places including Whidbey Island and its surrounding waters.

George Vancouver and Joseph Whidbey

Competition between Spain and England for maritime and territorial control of the North Pacific coast of North America came to a head in the summer of 1789 when the commander of the Spanish outpost at Nootka Sound on today’s Vancouver Island seized British commercial ships engaging in fur trading with the Indigenous people of the area. War was nearly declared between Spain and Britain, until Spain backed down, realizing it could not count on an alliance with France, then preoccupied with the French Revolution. Spain and Britain negotiated joint claims of the area with the Nootka Convention in 1790.

In 1792, Captain George Vancouver was directed by the British Government to sail to Nootka Sound to meet Spanish commander Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra, implement the terms of the Nootka Convention and complete a detailed survey of the Northwest Coast.

Though previous Spanish expeditions had made maps and charts of parts of today’s Salish Sea, Vancouver and his officers completed a much more rigorous survey. The expedition’s large ships, the Discovery and Chatham, carried eight smaller boats aboard to be used for detailed surveying close to the shoreline.

On June 7, 1792, Vancouver directed Lieutenants Jospeh Whidbey and Peter Puget to accurately chart the landmass east of the ships’ positions in Rosario Strait. With a group of sailors in two of the small boats they sailed through Deception Pass and soon recognized that they had entered the northern extension of Saratoga Passage, which they had charted a week earlier while cruising northwards from Possession Sound (near today’s city of Everett). They returned to the ships three days later. In honor of Whidbey’s determination that the land in between the two passages was actually a large island, Vancouver named it “Whidbey’s Island.”

Joseph Whidbey’s career in the British Navy spanned several decades, during which he was recognized for his attention to detail in the production of accurate survey charts in many parts of the world. After his return to England at the conclusion of the expedition with Captain Vancouver, he was largely tasked with planning and supervising navigational aids and the construction of protected harbors.

Land Distribution

The Oregon Treaty between the United States and Great Britain in 1846 established the border between the two countries’ colonial administration at the 49th parallel, putting the site of today’s Joseph Whidbey State Park Property under American jurisdiction.

Prairie lands that had been stewarded by Indigenous people for thousands of years were highly sought by incoming colonists from the United States because farming could be undertaken without having to clear forests. Subsequently, Whidbey Island quickly became one of the most densely settled areas when non-Indigenous people began to come into the country.

US Government surveys were completed in 1858 and the majority of the land that makes up today’s park was selected for a claim under terms of the Homestead Act of 1862 by George and Sarah Hathaway. They built the required dwelling and agricultural developments to “prove up” their claim and received a patent for the land on April 5, 1888.

The Hathaway homestead was sold to Fred and Wiepkje DeWilde, and they deeded the property to Wiepkje’s daughter Carrie DeWilde Christensen and her husband Charles in 1927. The Christensens enlarged and modernized the home to include indoor plumbing, electricity, and telephone service, while expanding the farm’s crop storage and livestock facilities.

When Washington Territory was created by an act of Congress in 1853, survey sections 16 and 36 in each township were reserved to be granted to the eventual State of Washington to be held in trust to support public institutions. In places where the reserved sections were already occupied by homesteaders, part of a forest reserve, military reservation or Native American reservation, the county commissioners in the affected county were authorized to locate other lands of equal extent “in lieu of” the unavailable lands.

Because Whidbey Island was settled earlier than most of the rest of Washington, much of the land in Island County that was intended for the state land grant was already occupied by the time Washington achieved statehood in 1889. Subsequently, the county commissioners selected tracts of remaining public domain lands in the county to make up the promised grant. One such tract included the part of today’s Joseph Whidbey State Park that includes the parking lot and picnic shelter.

NAS Whidbey

Early in 1941, the US Navy began a search for good location to base its PBY Catalina amphibious aircraft, which were designed for anti-submarine warfare and long-distance reconnaissance. They chose Oak Harbor for its protected waters and amenable weather conditions for seaplane operations. After US entry into World War II, the Navy decided to build an airport as well, to support other naval air operations.

Twenty farms located on the proposed airport site were bought out by the US Government. They offered the Christensons $18,000 for their farm; a court challenge of the taking increased the amount to $26,000. Naval Air Station Whidbey (NAS Whidbey) was commissioned on September 21, 1942, and became a primary training base for fighter and bomber aircraft crews, including those deployed on aircraft carriers.

After World War II, operations from other bases on the west coast and Pacific islands were transferred to NAS Whidbey, and it became the primary home for tactical electronic attack aircraft. These are used to suppress enemy air defenses and communication systems in operating theaters. Training and operations at the base result in heavy flight activity in the region.

Creating a State Park

A statewide outdoor recreation plan created in 1967 highlighted a “need for the acquisition of additional saltwater shore lands” on Whidbey Island. When the US Navy determined that 112 acres of NAS Whidbey were surplus to the needs of the facility in 1973, the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission (WSPRC) applied to receive the parcel under the 1949 Federal Land to Parks law. The application for the transfer noted that the subject property featured “low bank waterfront that allowed easy public access to the beach.”

The property was deeded to the WSPRC on March 29, 1974. The deed contained three conditions unique to this transaction: park staff were required to build a security fence along the boundary with NAS Whidbey, prohibit any use which would produce electrical emissions that would interfere with Naval communications systems, and allow the Navy to continue to use a small arms rifle and pistol range on the property for one year.

Proposed Private Concession

Acceptance of the deed to the property also committed the WSPRC to develop and operate the property for public recreation. Lacking funds to complete developments, the Commission authorized park staff to seek a commercial lease agreement to achieve that goal in 1977.

A concession agreement was entered into on July 1, 1978, requiring the private concessionaire to build a 100-site campground, swimming pool, convenience store, and other amenities. Local residents protested the size and impact of the proposal and Island County planners did not issue the required permits for construction. The concession agreement was cancelled.

Funding was obtained for construction of limited day-use facilities in 1986, and Joseph Whidbey State Park was opened for public use. In 1996, a campsite designated solely for use by human-powered boaters was established in the park. It is part of the Cascadia Marine Trail, a 150-mile route on the waters of Washington’s Salish Sea honoring the water transportation used by the region’s Indigenous people for thousands of years.