1800s - 1919
Timeline
1855
On January 22, several Puget Sound-area Native American tribes sign the Treaty of Point Elliott at Muckl-te-oh, or Point Elliott (today’s Mukilteo), ceding much of their lands to the U.S. government, including a large village — Hibulb — at the northern tip of the Port Gardner Peninsula. The agreement guarantees hunting and fishing rights to local Native Americans and establishes several Native American reservations, including one for local indigenous peoples, which becomes known as the Tulalip Indian Reservation. The treaty spurs additional European-American settlement in the area.
1890
The Everett Land Company is formed by HenryHewitt Jr., Charles L. Colby and others, with financial backing from John D. Rockefeller. The group plans Everett as an industrial city. The city is named “Everett,” after Colby’s son.
1891
The Seattle & Montana Railroad from Seattle toVancouver, B.C., is completed, linking Everett to major cities north and south. The line runs along Everett’s waterfront.
1891
In December, the Charles W. Wetmore steel-hulled “whaleback” freighter arrives at Port Gardner Bay, carrying goods for the area’s fledgling factories, as well as iron with which to establish a bargeworks
1891-92
One of Everett’s first businesses, Puget Sound Wire Nail and Steel Company, is established along Port Gardner Bay. The city’s first dock is built bayside for the nailworks, around what would be the foot of Pacific Avenue (today the site of Pier 1.) Around this time the Rucker Dock (later City Dock, then Pier 2) is built at the foot of Hewitt Avenue; by the early 1900s that dock would become the major connecting point for both passenger and commercial travel.
1892
The Everett Land Company builds the 14th Street Dock and opens the first business on the west end of the dock, a sawmill. A few weeks later, the Neff and Mish Shingle Mill is built on the north side of the dock.
1893
The Great Northern Railway line from points in the Eastern U.S. is completed to Everett; boxcars of Neff and Mish shingles are the first rail cargo to leave Everett for Eastern U.S. markets.
1893
The Everett Land Company submits a plan to the federal government to build a freshwater harbor at the mouth of the Snohomish River; work on a “training dike” made of loose stone begins in 1895 but plans are abandoned by 1897. (The site eventually becomes Jetty Island.)
1893
The City of Everett incorporates.
1894
The steel-hulled whaleback, SS City of Everett, is launched.
1900
Great Northern Railway magnate James J. Hill buys the Everett Land Company and renames it the Everett Improvement Company. That same year he also sells to Frederick Weyerhaeuser 900,000 acres of Washington timberlands, with some of the logs cut there destined for Everett lumber mills.
190
American Tug Boat Company, founded in Everett by shingle mill owner David A. Clough and Captain Harry Ramwell, purchases the Towle-Thurston Towing Company of Everett, and with it the R.P. Elmore, which becomes the company’s flagship. The company’s tugboats become a fixture at the Port as a key part of the local lumber trade — used to move waterborne lumber (or “log rafts”) from place to place.
1901
The Everett Flour Mill Company, which soon produces a popular brand of flour called “Best Everett,” opens bayside at the foot of 25th Street.
1902
Frederick Weyerhaeuser buys the Bell-Nelson Mill on the bayfront between Pacific Avenue and 33rd Street from James Bell and John Nelson, it’s soon dubbed Weyerhaeuser Mill A (today the site of the Port’s South Terminal shipping facility). The site was Weyerhaeuser’s first mill in the Pacific Northwest.
1906
Lumber from Everett’s mills helps San Francisco rebuild after a large earthquake and ensuing fires.
1907
The Clough-Hartley Shingle Mill opens on the bayfront at 18th Street.
1907
The growth of pleasure boating spurs formation of the Everett Yacht Club. The early clubhouse is on an offshore float at Camp No. 1, south of Weyerhaeuser Mill A. Access is only by water or via a walk down the Great Northern train tracks. In 1914, the Yacht Club moves an “acquired house” to their float to serve as a gathering spot.
1908
Around this time, Oriental Dock (later called Pier 3) is built by the Great Northern Railway.
1909
An early world's fair, the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, is held on the newly relocated University of Washington campus in Seattle. More than three million people attend, bringing a measure of national and international attention to the area. The fair promotes the region's sublime setting for motor boating, as well as its dense forests and bountiful timber. Commemorative days to honor a variety of organizations, professions and communities were established; the fair’s Snohomish County Day was held on August 3.
1913-16
Neil E. Jamison, already the owner of a lumber and shingle mill on the 14th Street Dock, forms Jamison Mill Company. By 1916 Jamison has built a new Jamison Lumber and Shingle Company plant at 10th Street and Norton Avenue on the north bayfront. (Jamison’s 14th Street Dock mill is renamed Cargo Shingle Company, and is sold by 1919.)
1916
On November 5, the Everett Massacre, an armed confrontation between local authorities and members of the Industrial Workers of the World union, or “Wobblies,” happens at City Dock (today the site of the Port’s Hewitt Terminal).
1917
In early April, the United States enters World War I by declaring war against Germany.
1918
On July 13 the public votes to create the Port of Everett — in large part to attract wartime industries. It passes with ease, 1,789 to 57. The first three elected commissioners are A. D. McAdam (a local contractor), president; C.W. Miley (president of Cascade Savings & Loan Association), secretary; and Albert Burke (president of Burke Motor Car Company). The Port District boundaries cover most of the city of Everett at the time, as well as portions of the city of Mukilteo and unincorporated Snohomish County. Today, the Port District boundaries remain unchanged.
1918
On November 11, an armistice ends World War I, and the newly created Port of Everett reassesses its focus.
1919
The Port develops its first harbor scheme, aiming to acquire properties around Mukilteo, as well as City Dock. (It’s later revised and eventually finalized in 1925.)
1919
In June, a delegation of Mukilteo citizens asks the Port Commission to help them build a ferry landing at Mukilteo to better connect them with Whidbey Island to the west.
A newspaper clippings surrounding the creation of the Port of Everett on July 13, 1918.
An 1892 view of Puget Sound Wire Nail and Steel Company, one of Everett’s first iron works companies, located near what would later become Pier 1.
Workers inside the Puget Sound Wire Nail and Steel Company, circa 1893. Photo courtesy of Port of Everett.
This drawing of early Everett provides an artist’s stylized perspective of the city and waterfront. Photo courtesy of Jack C. O’Donnell collection.
A 1901 Everett Daily Herald article shows Weyerhaeuser believing that “Everett is All Right.” Photo courtesy of Everett Public Library.
Everett’s turn of the century industrial look dubs it “The Pittsburgh of the West” with the Bell-Nelson Mill and others lining the bayfront, circa early 1900s. Photo courtesy of Everett Public Library, photographer George W. Kirk.
A street level view of City Dock looking west in 1917, a year after the infamous Everett Massacre that took place there. Photo courtesy of Everett Public Library.
Wobblies, were part of the labor dispute that became known as the Everett Massacre. This lineup of prisoners represents just a few of the Wobblies who were arrested following the shootout. Photos courtesy of Everett Public Library.
A lone shingle weaver is shown in this interior shot of a typical shingle mill. Photo courtesy of Everett Public Library.
C-B Lumber and Shingle Company, located at the foot of 9th Street, began operation around 1914. Photo courtesy of Everett Public Library.
An occasion worthy of a photograph in 1892 as citizens pose on the whaleback Charles W. Wetmore. Photo courtesy of Everett Public Library, photographers R. King and D. W. Baskerville.
Ships loading wood products at Weyerhaeuser’s Mill A site, now the Port’s South Terminal location. Photo courtesy of Port of Everett.
Loading windjammers at the Clark-Nickerson Dock, located at 24th and Bayfront, circa 1902. Photo courtesy of Port of Everett.
A 1907 view of the Clough-Hartley Plant, the world’s largest shingle mill. Photo courtesy of Everett Public Library.
A shingle weaver operating machinery at one of the waterfront mills. Photo courtesy of Larry and Jack O’Donnell.
Weyerhaeuser employees line up for a photo in front of the Weyerhaeuser Office Building. The iconic structure was built in 1923. Photo courtesy of Port of Everett.
A northern facing view of the mills lined along the 14th Street Dock, circa 1915. Photo courtesy of Everett Public Library.
A western view of the 14th Street dock, built by the Everett Land Company, lined with several small mills and a railroad spur to service them, circa 1916. Photo courtesy of Everett Public Library.
A newspaper clippings surrounding the creation of the Port of Everett on July 13, 1918. Photos courtesy of Everett Public Library
This circa 1915 postcard view looking NW shows 14th Street was still served by the wooden Norton Avenue trestle. The trestle was replaced with earthen fill and represents what is now known as West Marine View Drive. Photo courtesy of Jack C. O’
A 1917 western facing view of the Everett City Dock, the scene of the infamous Everett Massacre that took place on November 5, 1916. Photo courtesy of Everett Public Library.
A 1892 view of the Puget Sound Wire Nail and Steel Company in the foreground, as the Charles W. Wetmore whaleback is docked. Photo courtesy of Everett Public Library, photographers R. King and D. W. Baskerville.
The City of Everett hired famous pilot Terah Maroney to perform an aerial show over the waterfront on July 4, 1914. Photo courtesy of Larry and Jack O’Donnell.
The Weyerhaeuser Company’s Mill B site in 1915. Photo courtesy of Everett Public Library, photographer J.A. Juleen.
The Jamison Mill, circa 1915, located near 10th and Bayfront. The company was a mainstay of the waterfront shingle industry for more than half a century. Photo courtesy of Everett Public Library, photographer J.A. Juleen.
Express Trolley traversing the Broadway Overpass, circa 1910. Photo courtesy of Port of Everett.
On November 5, 1916, the Wobblies arrived in Everett from Seattle aboard the steamer Verona, shown here a year later at City Dock. Photo courtesy of Port of Everett.
The passenger ship Congress, tied up at Oriental Dock, circa 1913. Oriental Dock was built in 1908, and would later become known as Pier 3. Photo courtesy of Port of Everett.
The Great Northern Depot, located upland, above the south Bayfront, circa 1905. Photo courtesy of Port of Everett.
In 1907, with the growing number of pleasure boaters, the Everett Yacht Club was created. This photo showcases Everett Yacht Club’s charter members and bylaws and first burgee design. Photo courtesy of the Everett Yacht Club.
An early key of the Everett waterfront by Sanborn Map Company. Photo courtesy of Everett Public Library.
Everett waterfront view showing Pier 1 to the left and City Dock to the right. Photo courtesy of Port of Everett.
Recreation along the waterfront dates back to the early 1900s. Residents enjoyed a bathing beach and swimming in Port Gardner Bay. Photo courtesy of Everett Public Library.
Early Everett and the Port of Everett’s First Years
The first inhabitants around Port Gardner Bay — later site of the city of Everett — were the NativeAmericans of the Snohomish Tribe. After they signed the Treaty of Point Elliott in 1855 andrelocated to the Tulalip Indian Reservation, the area was prepared for maritime development. The bay’s natural deep-water harbor and plethora of old-growth forests in the nearby Cascade Range foothills drew a mix of settlers to set up shop there.
Port Gardner Bay and the Snohomish River to the east form the Port Gardner peninsula. These earliest shorelines included a mix of industries, such as lumber, cedar shingle and pulp mills, wood products manufacturers, iron works, shipbuilders, fisheries, canneries and a flour mill.
Things had started to gel in the last decade of the century when brothers Wyatt and Bethel Rucker, along with their mother, moved to the peninsula from Tacoma in 1889, and by 1890 they’d bought thousands of acres of bayfront property. That same year, the Ruckers were joined by Tacoma industrialist Henry Hewitt and East Coast businessman Charles Colby, and the group formed the Everett Land Company with the financial backing of John D. Rockefeller. (The Ruckers transferred half their land to the company as well.) The Everett Land Company soon built the 14th Street Dock along the north bayfront, and set up a sawmill on it — creating a space for many smaller lumber and shingle mills to come.
The bayfront’s first dock, however, was built for the Puget Sound Wire Nail and Steel Company (aka “the nailworks”), which opened in 1891 between what would be the foot of Wall Street and Pacific Avenue (Pier 1 would later be built in this area). Nearby, the Rucker Dock soon jutted into the tidelands at the base of Hewitt Avenue. (That dock would later be called City Dock, then Pier 2. City Dock would serve as the town’s passenger and commerce transportation hub, and was the site of the infamous Everett Massacre in 1916. Pier 3, first called Oriental Dock, was later built by the Great Northern Railway around 1908.)
In 1891 and 1893, north-south and east-west rail lines connected the Everett waterfront to far-flung markets, paving the way for a lucrative port. This was in no small part due to the efforts of James J. Hill, who ran one of the lines — the Great Northern Railway. In 1900, Hill bought the Everett Land Company on the heels of a Wall Street crash — the “Panic of 1893” — a nationwide depression that led Rockefeller
to cut his ties to the city, and left the Everett Land Company in receivership. Hill changed the name of the Everett Land Company to the Everett Improvement Company, and enticed many others to set up shop along the Port Gardner peninsula, including a man named Frederick Weyerhaeuser. David Clough, former governor of Minnesota, and his son-in-law Roland Hartley also made their way to the emerging city. Hill always believed the area’s future lay in the wood products business, and his agenda included transporting
these wood products east from Everett via his railroad. Almost overnight, Everett’s economy transformed to one almost entirely based on timber processing, with mills lining Port Gardner Bay and the SnohomishRiver — these two bodies of water formed the Port Gardner peninsula. It was soon, assuredly, a mill town known as the “City of Smokestacks.”
But statewide, frustrations with private companies — mills, warehouses, stores, railroad lines, shipping terminals — dominating harbors and pushing forward with uncontrolled waterfront development while only looking out for their own interests led to calls for change. And with the planned 1914 opening of the Panama Canal, leaders in Washington state’s port cities were also concerned about meeting the demands of an anticipated boom; they began asserting that only public ownership could help them modernize and expand enough to handle the increase in trade. The state’s Port District Act was signed into law on March 14, 1911.
Locally, the harbor area had first been controlled by Everett Land Company, then by Everett Improvement Company. The city’s economy and waterfront were dominated by wood-products industries, including the huge Clough-Hartley, Clark-Nickerson, Weyerhaeuser, and Robinson Manufacturing mills along the south bayfront. The north bayfront was home to numerous small shingle operations, as well as
three giant plants: C-B Lumber and Shingle Company, Jamison Lumber and Shingle Company and the Fred K. Baker Lumber Company (later, the William Hulbert Mill Company). If a vote to establish a port district passed, port management would officially transfer to public hands — but it would begin with most of the city’s waterfront businesses under private control.
Yet during World War I (1914–1918), Everett had a commodity that was sorely needed — wood. Lumber was used to build ships, airplanes and barracks for troops. Everett hoped to get a big slice of the wood-supplier pie, and possibly a shipbuilding operation. During the war, Norway-Pacific Construction and Drydock Company opened a plant on Port Gardner Bay. A well-managed public port seemed like the answer.
The Port District Act allowed citizens of any Washington county to create a port district (encompassing all or part of that county) run by three commissioners, elected directly by voters in the stated district. Port commissions could levy taxes and (with voter approval) issue bonds for the purpose of acquiring, constructing and operating waterways, docks, wharfs and other harbor improvements, such as rail and
water transfer and terminal facilities and ferry systems. The people of Everett liked this idea, and the Port of Everett was created by special election on July 13, 1918. The vote was 1,789 to 57 in support of creating the Port of Everett, the sixth port created under Washington’s Port District Act of 1911.