The Federal Building

At the turn of the twentieth century, Bellingham was isolated from the main district court in Seattle. Roads were poor, and rail and steamship travel made prolonged trials inconvenient for witnesses and juries. Beginning in 1903 Senator Addison G. Foster began lobbying to have a federal building in Bellingham that would house a post office, customs, revenue quarters and a federal court. The federal government purchased a sandstone hill in downtown Bellingham, but the location required major excavation of the stone outcrop, to four feet below the sidewalk. The site was chosen over one farther south, after “north side men” offered to remove the rock from the site themselves.