<< Previous   of   Next >> Enterprise/CHRIS GOODENOW  (click to enlarge) Edmonds resident LeRoy Middleton remembers working in the basement of the old Carnegie Library, when it housed City Hall. The building is now the Edmonds Historical Museum. (click to enlarge) Edmonds-South Snohomish County Historical Museum The current-day Masonic Lodge at 515 Dayton St. was opened in 1909 as the Edmonds Athletic Center. The photo shows the EAC around 1911. In 1912, the building was renamed the Edmonds Opera House. (click to enlarge) Edmonds-South Snohomish County Historical Society Above: Yost Garage and the Old Milltown area as it looked in 1965. Left: Old Milltown as it looked Sept. 23. (click to enlarge) Enterprise/CHRIS FYALL (click to enlarge) For the Enterprise/EDMONDS-SOUTH SNOHOMISH COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY The old Edmonds High School, as it looked around 1911. An auditorium was added to the high school in 1939. In 2006, the Edmonds Center for the Arts renovated and occupied the auditorium, but tore down the original high school building.8 (click to enlarge) For the Enterprise/EDMONDS-SOUTH SNOHOMISH COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY The inside of the old Edmonds High School auditorium. The Edmonds Center for the Arts renovated and occupied the auditorium in 2006. (click to enlarge) Enterprise/CHRIS GOODENOW Edmonds resident LeRoy Middleton remembers working for Edmonds City Council when it was housed in the building that is now the Edmonds Historical Museum.

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Edmonds residents remember city's humble roots

• A peek at Edmonds' past

By Chris Fyall
Enterprise editor

LeRoy Middleton, 84, is one of a generation of Edmonds locals who grew up both a stone's throw, and over an hours' bus ride from Edmonds proper.

As a child, Middleton rode his school bus as it meandered across dirt and gravel roads, stopping almost everywhere, before it finally reached his home in modern-day Lynnwood's Seattle Heights neighborhood.

"The dirt and gravel roads, they're gone," Middleton said. "The bus passed primarily farms. They're gone, too."

Edmonds is an old city with a storied history.

Since the mid-1950s, the city's growth has been explosive.

Incorporated in 1890, Edmonds was for many decades a simple mill town. It added only 500 citizens from 1909 to 1955, when it was a humble city of 2,000 residents, and when development hardly extended past the "Bowl."

But now its nearby farms have become its nearby single-family neighborhoods; with 40,000 residents, Edmonds is the second largest city in Snohomish County.

For lifelong residents, the change has been marked, said John McGibbon, 73. McGibbon has lived his entire life in the Bowl.

"When I was growing up, Edmonds was bordered by Ninth Avenue and Puget Sound, and by Caspers Street and Pine Street," McGibbon said. "Everything else was the sticks as far as I was considered."

Living in the Bowl was another ball game, too.

For instance, a newspaper ad from 1953 lists "a nice, two-bedroom home, full basement, garage, chicken house, large lot, beautifully landscaped, right in the center of town" home selling for $5,950. That's roughly $46,000 in today's dollars.

These days, would-be homeowners usually need 10 times that. Or more. In late September, there were 15 homes in the Bowl selling for a list price above $1 million, according to the real-estate Web site Zillow.com.

Activities that current residents take for granted, like the wildly popular, regionally-important Edmonds Arts Festival, didn't exist.

The Arts Festival began in 1957. The Driftwood Players also launched in 1957. The Cascade Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1962.

These days, Edmonds' teenagers sometimes taunt the city for its supposed dearth of daily, or nightly, entertainment. They call it "Deadmonds."

But, for 72-year-old native Bob Stevenson, the city has always offered entertainment options. He remembers dances and movies and soda fountains.

But the times have changed that, too, Stevenson said.

"I remember we'd sit on the dock by the railroad, by the ferry dock, and we'd watch the cars get on and off the boats," he said.

Stevenson and his friends would go to Fifth and Dayton, too, where there was a car mechanic. They'd watch the cars go up and down the grease rack, he said.

Those activities don't work for today's kids, or too many of Edmonds' other residents, either.

"I think the cultural things have been a great improvement," said Stevenson, who chaired a fundraising committee that helped bring the city's $18.5 million Edmonds Center for the Arts to life in 2006.

The ECA, long-time residents say, is an example of the way Edmonds' downtown core, at least, has tried to remake itself without completely tearing down and rebuilding.

The performing arts center's auditorium was built in 1939 as part of an addition to the now-defunct Edmonds High School. Then it housed a junior high, then nothing, then the small Puget Sound Christian College.

But to build the ECA's parking lot, crews demolished the high school's primary building, a 1909, two-story, classical-revival style brick building designed by a famous architect.

"It was a trade-off," Kjris Lund told the Seattle Times in October 2005. Lund was involved in the project, and was King County's former historic-preservation officer. "Life is not black and white -- it is shades of gray."

Preservation

Even when looking at black-and-white photos, though, one can imagine the Edmonds of many decades ago. Its face is largely the same, even if its uses are different.

Today's Masonic Lodge was called the Edmonds Athletic Club when it opened in 1909, and then the Opera House after 1912 -- and so on. It has housed a roller skating rink as well as a bowling alley.

Two of Main Street's most impressive buildings are also among its oldest -- the Beeson Building at 406 Main St. was built in 1911, and the Bank Building at 324 Main St. was built in 1904.

The Bank Building is actually the city's oldest permanent building, according to a plaque erected by the Edmonds South Snohomish County Historical Society.

Middleton, who used to ride the school bus to his Seattle Heights home, moved to downtown Edmonds after college.

From the Bowl, he's watched the city grow. He helped design that growth from his position as a principal at the Reid Middleton engineering firm, which briefly operated out of Edmonds' City Hall.

But he also watched that growth as one of the founding members of Edmonds' historical society.

"The city just grew, just like anything else," Middleton said. "More people moved in, more development, and more homes and more jobs.

"But I think Edmonds has done pretty well actually keeping its character, even if I'm not exactly sure what the character is," he said, noting Edmonds' long history. "Is it an old mill town? Is it something else? I guess every community asks itself that question."

Reporter Chris Fyall: 425-673-6525 or cfyall@heraldnet.com