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Located in Northwest Washington, Whatcom County was named after a Nooksack Indian chief in 1854 by the Territorial Legislature. Originally incorporating the towns of Fairhaven, Whatcom, Sehome and Pattle's Point (which would later be renamed Unionville, and then Bellingham), the area was home to the largest salmon cannery in the world. Later towns that developed followed gold prospectors and lumber mills towards the hills and river origins. These towns; Everson, Ferndale and Lynden diversified the industries of Northwest Washington, and brought settlers from all over the country and the world to the rich soil and fertile economic potentials.

Whatcom county now has a population of over 170,000 people in an area of 2119 square miles. Read more about Whatcom County census information.

The name of Bellingham is derived from the bay on which the city is situated. George Vancouver, who visited the area in June 1792, named the bay for Sir William Bellingham, the controller of the storekeeper's account of the Royal Navy.

The first white settlers reached the area in 1854. Local history and legend credit one "Blanket" Bill Jarman as the first white man to reside in the area. The original settlement was named Whatcom, located where Whatcom Creek empties into the bay. A stockade, "Fort Bellingham", was built on Peabody Hill, and commanded by Captain George E. Pickett, later to become famous as a Confederate General in the Civil War. Pickett's house remains to this day as the oldest house in the city.

In 1858, the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush caused thousands of miners, storekeepers, and scalawags to head north from California. Whatcom grew overnight from a small northwest mill town to a bustling seaport, the basetown for the Whatcom Trail, which led to the Fraser Canyon goldfields, used in open defiance of colonial Governor James Douglas's edict that all entry to the gold colony be made via Victoria, British Columbia. The first brick building in Washington was built at this time, the T. G. Richards and Company Store. The first newspaper in Whatcom County, the Northern Light, was published by William Bausman during the boom. Just as soon as it started, the boom went bust with the miners being forced to stop at Victoria, B.C. for a permit before heading to the mining fields. Whatcom's population dropped almost as quickly as it had grown, and the sleepy little town on the bay returned.

Bellingham was officially incorporated on November 4, 1903. It was the result of the consolidation of four towns initially situated around Bellingham Bay: Whatcom, Sehome, Bellingham, and Fairhaven.