Podcast offers guided historical tour of Everett cemetery
David Dilgard commentary available
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Michael O'Leary / Herald file photo
Everett Librarian David Dilgard holds one a marker discussing the city's history. Dilgard helped create 52 of the markers in 1972.
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Dan Bates / Herald file photo
The Rucker Tomb is one of Evergreen Cemetery's more striking architectural features. A new podcast offered by the Everett Public Library recreates a popular guided tour of the historically significant cemetery led by area historian David Dilgard.
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Courtesy of Everett Public Library
The Evergreen Cemetery lych gate entrance in Everett as photographed in 1908. Since it was platted in 1898, there have been about 60,000 burials at the cemetery, including four governors, more than 150 Civil War Veterans and a great-great-great grandmother of President-elect Barack Obama.
Now you can, too.
A self-guided audio tour of Dilgard's popular guided walk through Evergreen Cemetery is now available online at Everett Public Library's Web site: www.epls.org. The tour includes a map and photos of highlights.
"This is really the beginning of a series of historical tours that people will be able to download and listen to at their leisure," said Dilgard, a history specialist with the library's Northwest Room.
Dilgard calls the picturesque cemetery a "biographical encyclopedia" of the city's history.
There are four governors buried at Evergreen -- two from Washington state, one from Minnesota and one from the Dakota Territories.
A William Shakespeare (not the English playwright) is interred there, as well as a banker who was lowered on a couch to his final resting spot.
More than 150 Civil War veterans and a great-great-great-grandmother of President-elect Barack Obama are among the 50,000 to 60,000 people at Evergreen.
Dilgard in his tour tells some of the city's darker stories and disasters.
A victim of the 1916 Everett Massacre, during which members of the International Workers of the World and deputized citizens rioted, is buried at Evergreen, along with one of the two deputies who died in the dock-side melee with five to 12 union members.
There are also victims of the 1910 Wellington railroad disaster that killed 96 people when a Stevens Pass avalanche wiped out two trains.
Dilgard also talks about Evergreen's best-known landmark, the 50-foot-tall granite pyramid, known as Rucker Tomb, built in 1907 for the matriarch of one of early Everett's most prominent families.
Of course, no tour of the cemetery would be complete without a mention of the 1995 Sylvester Stallone and Antonio Banderas film "Assassins," which had a shoot-out scene at the graveyard.
Evergreen Cemetery is located at 4504 Broadway. If you go to the cemetery, dress warmly and wear sturdy shoes, as the slopes can be steep and slippery.
Take a walk through history
To download the cemetery tour podcast or other library podcasts, go to www.epls.org/podcast. For more information, visit the Everett Public Library's Northwest Room, 2702 Hoyt Ave., Everett.
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