Victorian Waterfront & Northwest Arts

Platted in 1883 as a rival city to Bellingham, Fairhaven still has its original 1890s brick commercial core intact — 12 blocks anchored by the Marketplace, the Village Green, and a working waterfront. The Alaska Ferry terminal is two blocks from the main street; the neighborhood's independent bookshops, wine bars, and boutiques have replaced the original hardware stores without erasing the bones of the place.

Named for the cigar-chomping, colorfully disreputable founder of Fairhaven, this restaurant has occupied a storefront on the historic strip since 1974 — Northwest seafood standards, a proper clam chowder, Dungeness crab, and local oysters in a preserved 1890s building with original pressed-tin ceilings.

Three interconnected heritage buildings house one of Washington's most significant art museums — the 1892 Old City Hall, a 1926 fire station, and the contemporary Lightcatcher Building designed by Olson Kundig with a translucent wall that floods the galleries with Pacific Northwest light. The permanent collection emphasizes Northwest Coast Indigenous art and 20th-century regional photography.