Crime Scene & Biohazard Cleanup Near Fireside Oak Harbor, WA

Oak Harbor is a city in Island County, Washington, and the largest city on Whidbey Island.

The city is named for the Garry oak trees that grow in the area.

Before European settlement, the site was a Lower Skagit village known in Lushootseed as təqucid.

Among the first settlers in the early 1850s were Zakarias Martin Toftezen, a Norwegian shoemaker, and C.W. Sumner from New England; Irish sea captains followed later in the decade and helped build the downtown.

Dutch farm families arrived in the 1890s — 18 families came aboard the steamboat Idaho in 1894 — and Dutch names, windmills, and traditions still mark the city.

Oak Harbor celebrates that heritage each year with the Holland Happening Festival, where residents wear traditional Dutch costumes and play old-country games.

Windjammer Park, the city's signature waterfront park, features a landmark windmill recalling the Dutch families, along with a beach and the Shipwreck Shores splash park.

Oak Harbor was incorporated on May 14, 1915, when it had a population of just 401.

The completion of the Deception Pass Bridge on July 31, 1935, ended the city's reliance on boats for access to the mainland.

Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, commissioned on September 21, 1942, transformed Oak Harbor into a Navy town; its Ault Field sits about three miles north of the city, and the station is home to all of the Navy's EA-18G Growler squadrons as well as P-8 Poseidon patrol aircraft.