‘Bellingham rock' broken to pieces by WSDOT

The Bellingham rock" is dead.

Time of death: Wednesday, May 6, 2026, afternoon.

It's no Frankenstein's monster that can be reanimated from disparate pieces, not after Washington State Department of Transportation crews busted the painted landmark along Interstate 5 into dozens of chunks.

Frank Youngblood, a private landowner, visited the behemoth boulder with WSDOT personnel and reluctant "voice of the rock" Keith Cook, to see if the pieces could be reassembled on Youngblood's property so Bellinghamsters could continue their decades-old tradition of painting messages on its surface.

WSDOT said it needed to remove what's known as the Bellingham rock, which sits on northbound I-5 just past Lake Samish, to make way for a fish passage restoration project. The agency said it couldn't leave the rock or return it to its place, so Cook found a landowner who might be able to take it.

Cook, 58, has run a Facebook page dedicated to the Bellingham rock for about 20 years, memorializing its messages. There's a sign attached to a tree near the landmark asking people to send their paintings in for him to post.

If the pieces of the rock were worth saving, Youngblood was going to set it on his property in a publicly accessible place near Western Washington University. But when he saw the shape the boulder was in - or shapes, rather - he decided he couldn't accept it.

When Youngblood agreed to rehome the rock, he thought it would be painted and whole. When WSDOT told him that wouldn't be possible, he expected it in reformable pieces. But when he saw it Wednesday, he said "there's no way."

"What are you supposed to do? Get a shovel and put the pieces in a wheelbarrow?" he asked.

The Bellingham rock is just a pile now. WSDOT crews stripped away its untold layers of painted messages celebrating sports wins, memorializing loved ones and commemorating big life moments. They then drilled into the boulder and inserted expanding grout to crack it apart.

WSDOT estimated in the transfer agreement that crews could break it into about four or five pieces, but that was just an estimate, said WSDOT spokesperson David Rasbach. "It's going to break how it's going to break depending on its composition and drilling and grout, Rasbach said.

Cook had brought a bucket along with him to bring a piece of the rock home as a souvenir, but when he saw the number of pieces the rock had been broken into, his spirits dropped.

The rock was in about 40 pieces, Rasbach said. The biggest pieces were feet long, but were still being broken up. The others were variously smaller.

"It was massacred. It was just dust. They just annihilated it," Cook said. "It was like a loss in the family."

Log that as Season 2 of Bellingham's beef with WSDOT. Last year residents put stuffed sloths all over town after WSDOT removed two giant stuffed sloths from a tree over I-5.

Some of Cook's favorite Bellingham rock entries span decades. One couple used the rock for a marriage proposal in 1985 (the answer was yes, by the way). For over 20 years, two parents painted the rock on the anniversary of their two sons' disappearance while kayaking in 2001. Cook's favorite elementary school teacher painted it for her 50-year high school graduation.

Looking at the Bellingham rock each time you drive by to see what message it bore that day becomes a nearly unconscious habit for those who frequently pass it by, Cook said. Now, they'll see nothing in its place.

WSDOT will distribute pieces of the rock to people who are interested, Rasbach said, but the details of that distribution have yet to be worked out.

Cook said pieces of the rock just aren't enough. He decided not to pick up a piece to bring home in the bucket.

Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.

This story was originally published May 7, 2026 at 4:50 PM.