Biohazard Cleanup Near Bow Historic District Bow, WA

Bow is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Skagit County, Washington, overlooking Samish Bay near the communities of Edison, Bay View and Blanchard.

Bow was first counted as a census-designated place in the 2020 census, which recorded a population of just 203 people.

The community began as Brownsville, named for William J. Brown, who homesteaded the townsite in 1869.

When the railroad brought a population boom and a post office was needed, Brown is said to have renamed the place Bow after the large Bow railway station in London, England — a station itself named for the bow, or poplar, tree.

Bow lies within the Mount Vernon–Anacortes metropolitan area, and Bow, Edison and Blanchard all share the same 98232 ZIP code.

The original townsite off Bow Hill Road once held a church, a mercantile and a hotel, and the community sits at an elevation of only about 13 feet above Samish Bay.

A local curiosity is the Bow Hill Railroad, a 2-foot narrow-gauge railway with a working steam locomotive on private property in the Bow area, opened to public rides at Christmastime in exchange for donations to the Alger food bank.

Bow is served by the Burlington-Edison School District, and the 2020 census found its small population was about 88 percent non-Hispanic white.