City of Everett history

Everett, city, seat (1894) of Snohomish county, northwestern Washington, United States, on Puget Sound, at the mouth of the Snohomish River, across from Whidbey Island (west), 28 miles (45 km) north of Seattle.

By 1895, Rockefeller started to withdraw his investments.

Everett began to recover in 1899 after Rockefeller's Everett Land Company transferred its holdings to James J. Hill's Everett Improvement Company.

By 1903, the Polk Everett City Directory boasted of 10 sawmills, 12 shingle mils, a paper mill, flouring mill, foundries and machine shops, planing mills, a smelter, an arsenic plant, a refinery, “creosoting” works, a brewer, a sash and door plant, an ice and cold storage plant, and a creamery.

In 1907, Everett passed the First Class City Charter and boomed after the San Francisco earthquake and fire brought huge orders for Northwest lumber.

The city’s own big fire in 1909 destroyed parts of the city, but did not deter future growth.

Hewitt Avenue and Commerce Block, Everett, 1914

In 1916, the shingle weaver’s strike culminated in a bloody confrontation at the city dock when two boatloads of Industrial Workers of the World members sailed up from Seattle to demonstrate support of striking shingle mill workers and free speech.

The eminent political scientist, Professor William Bennett Munro, writing in one of the first textbooks on municipal administration (1934), stated: “No other office in municipal service has so many contracts.

Everett Community College was founded in 1941.

Construction on Naval Station Everett began in November 1987.

Everett also developed as a port, which acquired strategic importance when, in 1994, the United States Naval Station Everett became operational; the station employs thousands of sailors and civilians and is the home port for eight warships of the Pacific Fleet.

In 2005, the city of Everett enjoyed growth and revitalization.