In late March 1914, Allen M. Yost (d. 1915) opens an automobile garage on the corner of 5th Avenue and Dayton Streets in Edmonds. This new building and business will remain one of the most identifiable mainstays of the community for many decades.
Age of the Auto in Edmonds
Work began the previous December on the re-enforced concrete building that housed the new garage. The Edmonds-Tribune Review boasted that the garage is “as complete as can be found in any city of its size in the state.” It measured 60 by 90 feet with entrances on both streets and a plate glass front. It had a “concrete floor with drainage, office in front and large work room in the rear and with floor room sufficient to store at least twenty large cars.” There was hot and cold water and a tank to store free air. The building itself was being leased to the Yost Auto Company, Inc., run by three Yost sons who had the agency to sell “the celebrated little Ford car” one of which was on display at the garage. (Edmonds Tribune-Review, March 27, 1914). Soon they would also have a Buick agency.
A carpenter at the time, Allan Yost, his wife Amanda (1852-1944) and their six children had arrived in Edmonds in 1890. Soon he became owner of a mill that produced both lumber and shingles. He also engaged in numerous civic and political activities in the growing town including service on the city council and a brief time as mayor (1903). Yost and other family members founded a water system that provided water to the town for over 30 years and a telephone company.
The Yosts and Edmonds
Indeed they seemed to be involved in virtually every endeavor that helped Edmonds grow. When he purchased a new Canadian-built Everett 30 automobile in June 1911, he became the first Edmonds resident to own a car. Local roads were essentially old trails that posed obstacles and hazards for driving, but that did not discourage Yost or his son George, the frequent driver and mechanic.
Thus began a long association between Yost family members and automobiles and local transportation generally. Along with an auto repair business and sales, the new building would headquarter a bus terminal; in years to come other additions would be made to the structure. Generations of the Yost family continued to serve the community in business, social, and civic leadership; arguably, no other family came to be as closely identified with the progress of Edmonds as the many Yosts.
In time the Yosts sold their several functions at that building to others even as the building remained an enduring landmark. In 1973 a group of investors purchased it and divided it into shops, renaming it “Old Milltown.” As the luster of Old Milltown faded and the structure fell into decline, another purchaser gutted it in 2007 in order as to rebuild it with new shops and offices, while retaining its most notable architectural features.
