Bellingham Then & Now: Old City Hall (Whatcom Museum)

Old City Hall wasn’t actually built for Bellingham - at least in name. It came about after the consolidation of Whatcom and Sehome into New Whatcom, when the city leaders felt that their new town’s government could hardly continue to share space with “a clothing emporium, music dealer and hotel”*.

The winning design, almost the shape of a corrugated diamond if viewed from directly above, was submitted by prominent local architect Alfred Lee (Roeder House, Robert Morse House, Alfred Black House, Frances Cleveland Axtell House). 

“This building epitomizes the general characteristics of this French inspired style, which are tall, bold and purposely three-dimensional. Some of the design elements are also an eclectic mixture of the Queen Anne and Romanesque Revival style.” (source)

Like any large project, this one had its controversies. The builder “had already dug a basement in the vicinity of Cornwall Avenue”*, which would allow the hall to be accessible from two streets. The Cornwall location came under fire when issues were raised about how the city would hold title to the site, and when it was revealed that “the site was directly above an old Bellingham Coal Company tunnel”*. The council quickly pivoted to another option - land purchased from settler Henry Roeder. 

“Roeder, incidentally, had volunteered the information about the mine tunnel.”*

The lots were purchased for $5,000, which is roughly $142,000 in today’s dollars, and the entire cost of the building plus the furnishings came out to around $50,000, or roughly $1.4 million today.

Bellingham was hit hard with the Panic of 1893, and so was the building project. 

“This was a raw town, experiencing waves of boom and bust with every rumor of new industrial development.” (source)

As funds withered away, the second and third floors were left unfinished for the time being. 

Now a Museum

In 1904, New Whatcom and Fairhaven merged to become Bellingham (and its first mayor was Alfred Black). The building on Prospect continued to house city government until 1939, when it moved to its current location on Lottie St. 

Old City Hall was leased to a volunteer museum society led by a local ornithologist whose bird collections continue to be displayed (albeit in a building next door). In 1944 the city adopted the museum as a public institution.  Now, the Whatcom Museum’s exhibits span multiple buildings: Old City Hall, the Lightcatcher Building, and Syre Education Center (originally the City’s fire hall). 

Today (well, not actually today, but once we’re out and about again!), docents lead weekly guided tours of the Hall, telling stories of old Bellingham, the building’s architecture, and the historic jail.  To make the exhibits and local history more accessible to the public, the Bellingham Public Library partnered with the Museum to offer free admission passes to the public to make the exhibits and local history more accessible to the public. 

Sources

*Koert, Dorothy & Galen Biery. (2003) Looking Back: Memories of Whatcom County/Bellingham. (this is a print resource available on Amazon).

“Old City Hall”. City of Bellingham. Link.

“Washington SP Whatcom Museum of History and Art.” National Archives Catalog. Link.

Images

Then: “Old City Hall”. City of Bellingham. Link.

Now: Cooper Hansley

Blog copy by Tiffany Holden