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E. D. Smith establishes the Town of Lowell (future Everett) in September 1863.

In September 1863, lumberman Eugene D. Smith and his partner Otis Wilson arrive on the Snohomish River to set up the first logging operation on the river. Experienced at logging with oxen, Smith settles with two squatters for the site and begins to clear the land for a home and a camp. After buying out Wilson, he goes on to build a store, wharf, hotel, blacksmith shop, the post office, and the first sawmill in the area. He names his settlement Lowell after Lowell, Massachusetts. A huge paper mill will follow. For many years, E. D. Smith and logging at Lowell will be the largest economic force on the Port Gardner Peninsula (site of the future city of Everett).
File 7391: Full Text >

Snohomish County residents gather at Lowell to celebrate Independence Day on January 3 and 4, 1874.

On January 3 and 4, 1874, Snohomish County residents gather at Lowell (now part of Everett) to celebrate Independence Day. The steamer Zephyr brings guests to a grand ball and dinner, hosted by Eugene D. and Margaret Smith and Martin and Olive Getchell. That night they return home and are brought back the next day to enjoy the holiday festivities in style.
File 8524: Full Text >

Whaleback freighter Charles W. Wetmore arrives in Everett on December 21, 1891.

On December 21, 1891, the so-called "whaleback" freighter Charles W. Wetmore arrives to great fanfare in the budding town of Everett on Port Gardner Bay in Snohomish County. The design of the steel-hulled vessel is a major maritime innovation, and her arrival marks the intense industrial boom overtaking the Everett Peninsula. Her captain and designer, Alexander McDougall, backed by East Coast money, will set up The Pacific Steel Barge Company with plans to employ 100 men.
File 7362: Full Text >

An Everett News reporter takes a death-defying ride down the log chute at a Lowell sawmill and lives to write about it on January 5, 1892.

On January 5, 1892, a daring Everett News reporter rides a log down the 2,000-foot chute to E. D. Smith's sawmill in Lowell. The log accelerates rapidly as it descends and the ride is terrifying. When the log finally hits water, the reporter realizes he has survived and a few days later will write his own account of the event in third-person narrative.
File 8519: Full Text >

Everett Woman's Book Club petitions City of Everett for a free public library on November 12, 1894.

On November 12, 1894, the Woman's Book Club of Everett passes a resolution to petition the mayor and common council of Everett to create a free public library for the city. They will secure their first books at a club picnic seven months later. By 1896 they will acquire 1,000 books and present them to the city. Their enthusiasm and dedication brings about the first library, which is housed in a private home. In 1905, the club will move into a permanent building constructed with a grant from the Carnegie Foundation (located on southeast corner of Wall Street and Oakes Avenue). In 2005, the club is still be active in the Everett community.
File 7377: Full Text >

Fire destroys the Snohomish County Courthouse in Everett on August 2, 1909.

At 3 p.m. on August 2, 1909, sparks from the J. K. Healy blacksmith shop at 3014 Wetmore Avenue in Everett ignite a pile of loose hay on the floor below. The wooden building is soon fully aflame. A strong northwest wind spreads the fire quickly and damages the Wetmore Avenue fire station, located only a few feet away. Fire next engulfs buildings of Everett Livery and Transfer Company, the Northern Transfer Company, and the Iles and Newman Carriage Works and finally ignites moss on the wood shingle roof of the Snohomish County courthouse. In a few hours all are ruins.
File 7889: Full Text >

Interurban rail service between Everett and Seattle begins on April 30, 1910.

On April 30, 1910, the Seattle-Everett Traction Company inaugurates electric interurban rail service with a 10 a.m. run from Everett to Seattle. Scheduled service begins two days later and continues until February 20, 1939, when the region's last interurban line is abandoned.
File 5341: Full Text >

Laundry workers strike all Everett plants on May 23, 1910.

On May 23, 1910, a Monday morning, members of the Shirt Waist and Laundry Workers Union No. 154 in Everett walk off the job. Strikers represent all laundry plants in the city. The dispute is over wages, which have remained the same for two years. Laundry owners hope to break the strike by using scab labor but are halted in their efforts when laundry drivers, not in negotiation, support the strike. Laundresses are prepared for a long strike, but a settlement is made in six days.
File 8316: Full Text >

Ella M. Russell, president of the Everett Suffrage Club, defends woman suffrage at a Billy Sunday crusade on July 5, 1910.

On July 5, 1910, Ella M. Russell, Everett's Suffrage Club president, rises to her feet before 5,500 people in a Billy Sunday crusade in Everett to answer an attack on woman suffrage. The attack comes from Mrs. Rae Muirhead, a Bible speaker with the Sunday campaign.
File 8527: Full Text >

Sumner Iron Works moves into its new building in Lowell by Christmas Day, December 25, 1913.

By December 25, 1913, Sumner Iron Works (founded in Everett in 1892) moves into its new building in Lowell. The year has been an eventful one for the profitable and successful firm. In April 1913 the plant had burned to the ground, leaving few remains. A new site was quickly chosen on the north end of nearby Lowell, at 3rd and 41st streets. By December 25, 1913, the new building is sufficiently completed for the company to move in.
File 8549: Full Text >

Hundreds celebrate the opening of the Mukilteo-to-Everett road (future Mukilteo Boulevard) on August 5, 1914.

On August 5, 1914, nearly half a century after its conception, the road connecting Mukilteo and Everett is opened officially and with grand ceremony. Hundreds of Everett and Snohomish County residents make the pilgrimage to Mukilteo to celebrate the event. Fifty cars form a cavalcade of visitors. They are met by county pioneers including Alexander Spithill (1824-1920), Louisa Fowler Sinclair (1862-1955), and Snohomish County historian William Whitfield (1846-1940). Many greet each other for the first time in years. Guests hear speeches by early residents, tour the Mukilteo lighthouse and are treated to a meal of roasted clams, green corn, and potatoes.
File 8429: Full Text >

Liberty Bell visits Everett, Seattle, and Tacoma on July 14, 1915.

On July 14, 1915, the Liberty Bell -- one of the United States's foremost symbols of freedom and independence -- visits Everett, Seattle, and Tacoma en route to the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco. The bell traveled the country by train, greeting throngs of joyous well-wishers in towns along the way. The crowds in Washington state are no exception.
File 3913: Full Text >

Citizen deputies beat 41 IWW members at Everett's Beverly Park on October 30, 1916.

On October 30, 1916, citizen deputies beat 41 members of the militant labor union, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), at Beverly Park in Everett. Everett city officials have granted authority to Snohomish County Deputy Sheriff Donald McRae (b. 1868) to restrict the IWW from speaking on Everett's traditional free-speech corner at Hewitt and Wetmore avenues, an attempt to prevent the IWW from organizing. For their part, on that day 41 members of the IWW, most straight from the harvest fields, leave Seattle by boat and head for Everett in support of an Everett shingle-mill-workers' strike (organized not by the IWW but by an AFL union) and with the intent of pressing the free-speech issue. They arrive in the evening and are met by more than 200 armed deputies who tell them they can only speak at a location away from the center of town. The IWW members refuse, and some are beaten at the dock. Deputies then load them into waiting trucks and cars, drive them to a remote wooded area near the Beverly Park interurban station southeast of town, and brutally beat them.
File 7887: Full Text >

Five IWW members and two deputies die in a gunbattle dubbed the Everett Massacre on November 5, 1916.

On November 5, 1916, two boatloads of workers and members of the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World, often called "Wobblies") traveled from Seattle to Everett to hold a free speech demonstration in support of striking shingle mill workers in Everett, and in support of First Amendment rights. They were met at the dock by local police, hired guards, and citizen deputies. Shots were fired, fatally wounding or killing outright five "Wobblies" aboard the steamer Verona. Two deputies also died on the pier, apparently shot in the back by their comrades during the fusillade. Seventy-four Wobblies were arrested on their return to Seattle and IWW leader Thomas H. Tracy was charged with murder. All were later released. Tracy was acquitted on May 5, 1917.
File 5326: Full Text >

Everett High champion football team wins national high school title on January 1, 1921.

On January 1, 1921, the 1920 Everett High School football team plays against East Technical High School of Cleveland, Ohio, and wins the United States High School Football title, the highest honor possible in high school football. Coach Enoch Bagshaw (d. 1930) and halfback George Wilson (1901-1963) lead the team. Both coach "Baggy" and Wilson will join the Huskies of University of Washington (UW) in the fall of 1921. Other Everett High School players will follow. Coach Bagshaw will take the UW team to their first ever win at the Rose Bowl. Wilson will become an All-American football player and have a professional career with the Providence Steamrollers. UW will name him the greatest football player of the university's first half-century.
File 7365: Full Text >

Everett Public Library commissions the first bookmobile in Washington in 1924.

In 1924, the Everett Public Library commissions the first bookmobile in Washington, only the second on the West Coast. A 1924 Ford Model T truck chassis is fitted with a fruit vendor-style van body and shelving with a capacity of 1,000 books. The bookmobile is nicknamed Pegasus and visits neighborhoods and schools to bring the books to readers.
File 5439: Full Text >

Interurban rail service between Everett and Seattle ends February 20, 1939.

At 11 p.m. on February 20, 1939, the last North Coast Lines electric interurban railcar leaves Everett for Seattle. This marks the end of 40 years of regional interurban service on Puget Sound.
File 2669: Full Text >

Fighter plane crashes into two Everett homes on January 25, 1942.

On January 25, 1942, a single-engine fighter plane plunges into the roof of the home at 1521 Grand Avenue in Everett, rips through a wood shed behind the house at 1518 Rucker Avenue, and crashes into a backyard cherry tree. Pilot Laune Erickson parachutes into Port Gardner Bay where he is quickly rescued by a U.S. Naval officer who lives near the crash site and is at home on leave at the time. Surprisingly no one is injured.
File 8305: Full Text >

Interstate 5 is completed from Everett to Seattle on February 3, 1965.

On February 3, 1965, the section of Interstate 5 from Everett to Seattle is completed. The section runs 19.7 miles from the Eastmont interchange at the southern end of Everett's city limits to the northern end of the Seattle city limits at NE 145th Street.
File 8548: Full Text >

Boeing rolls out first 747 Jumbo Jet in Everett on September 30, 1968.

On September 30, 1968, Boeing rolls out the first 747 "Jumbo Jet" in Everett, Washington.
File 1565: Full Text >

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