We welcome you to Skagit Valley's finest pub. Gentlemen Gene's Pub & Eatery was the longtime dream and plan of a man with many years of experience in the food and beverage industry. His strongest foresight into the desires of the public is proven time and again as we witness a rash of similar restaurants and pubs being built throughout the state. Gentlemen Gene's is the master copy and Washingtonians can now enjoy Gene's influence in their own city.

History of Mount Vernon
Long before white settlers discovered a Northwest Washington waterway they named the Skagit River, Indians used that channel as a highway for trade and travel. The Skagit was deep and wide witha slow moving current. But sternwheelers had trouble navigating the river because of log jams. It was on the site of a monumental log jam at the bend in the river that the early-day town of Mount Vernon put down its first roots, primarily because the jam prevented up-river travel. Because travelers could continue o9nly as far as the jam, a village evolved just below the stubborn tangled mess.

Jasper Gates, The "Father of Mount Vernon", was one of a party of men from Whidbey Island who located homesteads on the Skagit River in 1870. He remained in the area his entire life, serving as sheriff from 1876 to 1880.

In 1876 Harrison Clothier, a teacher born and educated in New York State, spent a winter term in the wooden school by the Skagit River. During his stay, local residents began clearing the big bend jam, not so much to improve transportation, but to allow timber cut from surrounding forests to be floated to sawmills downstream. Clothier took stock of his surrounds and saw opportunity. He and a partner, a former student named Ed English, bought a piece of land in February of 1877 and plotted a town site beside the river. They built a cabin that served as a trading post, living area, real estate agency, newspaper bureau and post office. In honor of the first president's Virginia home, the school teacher and his student named their town Mount Vernon.

In 1887 Clothier and English founded the Skagit Saw and Manufacturing Company, a business upon which fledgling Mount Vernon gained a stronghold. By the late 1800's the river's log jam had been cleared and the waterway opened to steamboates. people came to Mount Vernon seeking emplyment in the mill, and Mount Vernon became an important trade and transportation center.

The first bridge over the Skagit was built at Mount Vernon between 1892 and 1893, which has a hand-operated draw span. The western span was destroyed in the flood of 1906, carried away be the roots of a tree. Two years later the entire sructure was replaced, the swing span equipped witha gas motor.

By the 1930's Mount Vernon was on its way to taming the river which had previously ruled it existence. Diking districts built earthen embankments to keep flood waters at bay, and more bridges opened up land to the east and north. Roads, once nearly impassasble because of mud during the rainy season, were drained and paved.

-adapted from Mount Vernon 1990 Newcomers and Visitor's Guide, by Bud Southworth and Dick Fallis.