Small-Town Washington -- Lynden: Neatness, Windmills And Nicely Mowed Lawns

This is the sixth in Travel's weekly "Small-Town Washington" series.

LYNDEN, Whatcom County - The Dutch are renowned for their tidiness, and in Lynden - where about half the 6,800 residents are of Dutch ancestry - the neatness gene is obvious.

Elm-lined streets and extra-wide sidewalks are spotless. Lawns that flourish in the rich Nooksack River bottom land are impeccably manicured. Few weeds have the courage to show themselves in the town's flower beds.

Lynden also is that rarity in modern-day America, a town that not only sharply limits taverns - there is exactly one in the entire town - but is closed on Sundays, when no less than 28 churches are open for business.

Besides the lone tavern, called U-Name-It, there's a small liquor store on Front Street. Townsfolk say the owner of the bowling alley spent 15 years trying to get a permit to serve beer and wine. He finally got it, and then his place burned down.

Lynden rated national headlines a few years ago when someone had the nerve to actually try to dance in a business that served liquor. Mixing liquor and dancing is strictly forbidden by ordinance, and the place was quickly shut down.

It seemed logical to most Lynden residents. The law's the law and that's all there is to it. But editorialists and commentators elsewhere in the country thought it strange indeed in the latter half of the 20th century.

The Sunday closure is not really a written law, says a clerk in

City Hall, who describes it as "more in the nature of a suggestion."

"If a merchant did decide to open on Sunday, the police wouldn't stop him or anything," she adds, "but he wouldn't do any business and, well, the word would get around about what he'd done."

There also is no truth to the rumor that it's illegal for residents of Lynden to drink from an open beer container while mowing their front lawn. Again, it's a matter of public pressure.

Nor is there anything on the books about keeping lawns mowed. "It's just that if you don't mow, you stick out like a sore thumb," said one resident. "And you don't mow on Sunday, because if you do there will be a polite suggestion that you do it on another day."

Some downtown merchants chafe under the no-Sunday-sales rule, especially since businesses east of the Guide Meridian (Highway 509) can stay open, because they are outside the city limits.

Then why not challenge the Sunday closure?

The merchant to whom the question was addressed smiled and replied, "It would be economic suicide." Then he shrugged and added, "Besides, it's kind of nice to have one day when people do things with their families."

At least half of Lynden's churches are of the "reformed" variety, with roots in the Calvinist tradition. Among them First Christian Reformed, Second Christian Reformed, Third Christian Reformed, Protestant Reformed, Mountain View Christian Reformed, First Reformed, Bethel Christian Reformed, Faith Reformed, etc.

At the Highway 509 entrance to town are two cemeteries. The one on the right is often referred to as "The Dutch Cemetery," the one on the left as "The American Cemetery."

Two workmen busy with trimmers and power mowers said there's really not much distinction anymore, because the Dutch cemetery is getting pretty full. "Dutch" and "Americans" now wind up side by side.

Dutch jokes are big. Many non-Dutch will say, "Half the town's Dutch, the other half are regular folk." The Dutch side of the cemetery is supposed to "look more stubborn."

Not surprisingly, Lynden - named for the Linden tree, with the "i" changed to "y" because it "looked prettier" that way - plays its Dutch theme to the hilt.

There's the Dutchman Coffee House, the Hollandia Restaurant, The Boekhandl (bookstore), The Village Boetiek (boutique), the Dutch Mothers Restaurant with its big "Welcum" sign, and Delft Square, which began in 1897 as the Lynden Department Store.

Even the U.S. Post Office has been renamed: "Postkantoor."

Windmills, hanging baskets, flower-filled whiskey barrels and tulip beds brighten downtown streets.

The largest windmill - the 72-foot-high Dutch Village Inn on Front Street - has six hotel rooms inside a windmill whose blades turn and are lighted until 10 o'clock every night.

The village also features shops, an indoor canal, several restaurants, an Amsterdam-style sidewalk cafe and a 200-seat theater (home of the Queen Juliana Players).

Another downtown windmill, a replica of one that might be found in the Netherlands, was built by the late Terunis Velthuizen in 1973 as a reminder of his heritage.

During Dutch festivals - Holland Days in May and Sinterklaas in December - most shopkeepers wear Dutch-style clothing. Those who work in the town's Dutch bakeries wear such clothing throughout the year.

In many of the tulip beds, are metal plaques containing historical information. Typical:

-- "Darigold's Lynden plant is the largest powdered-milk plant in the world."

-- "Ripley's (Believe It or Not) once reported that Lynden had more churches and attendance than any other comparable city in the U.S.A."

The Lynden area has more than 500 dairies. It also is the biggest raspberry producer (46.5 million pounds from 3,800 acres) in the U.S.

Lynden is not a town much given to excitement, except in sports, where its two high schools - Lynden Christian and the Lynden High School Lions (great headline material there) are perennial contenders for state championships.

The noisiest thing in town is the wooden-shoed Dutch Klompen dancers.

The loudest cheers, outside the gymnasium, may be for the draft horses at the annual International Plowing Match at the Northwest Washington Fairgrounds.

On a recent midweek day, townsfolk kept up a running commentary as a policeman spent at half-an-hour trying to help two young women get into a vehicle in which they had locked the keys.

A merchant watching the policeman try to play burglar, laughingly said, "That's the most excitement he'll have during this shift, might as well enjoy it. There not much real crime around here. I've had just three bad checks in four years, and two of those were from the same guy. I called him one morning, and he apologized and drove up to my place to make good on the checks.

"Up here, the police personally go out and collect from bad-check writers, which means I don't have to have check insurance."

Down the street, several more strollers stopped to critique a young man's technique as he swept an already spotless sidewalk outside Les' Barber Shop.

This year's 11th annual Holland Days attracted a large international contingent - from Holland and Canada - to mark the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Holland by largely Canadian troops.

To make the town worthy of its visitors, streets not only were given their weekly cleansing by a street-sweeper, they also got a power-washing to remove any hint of dirt.

For years, the most famous man in town was not Dutch but Jewish. Sol Lewis, who took over as editor and publisher of the Lynden Tribune in 1914, was a superb wordsmith who was often quoted in the pages of The Readers Digest. Today the Lynden Tribune is published by Michael Lewis, grandson of old Sol.

For all its reputation for being goody-goody, Lynden is a town that judges people by their actions and not by their ancestry.

More information

Lynden Chamber of Commerce. Phone (360) 354-5995.

Don Duncan is a retired Seattle Times reporter. Next week: Toppenish.