Published: Monday, June 22, 2009
Seattle Heights: Memories of a Highway 99 village
In its earlier days, Seattle Heights was nearly a self-sufficient rural community.
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Submitted photo
Edmonds resident LeRoy Middleton's father owned this grocery store and post office at 212th Street SW and Highway 99, part of the Seattle Heights community. A Jack-in-the-Box restaurant now occupies the site.
LYNNWOOD -- Today, 212th Street SW east of Highway 99 provides a home for a car wash, a few automobile parts dealers, car repair shops and Brighton School, a private elementary school.
LeRoy Middleton remembers 212th as part of a multiblock area once known as Seattle Heights. It's where he grew up and where the retired surveyor formed his earliest memories.
"I suppose you could call it almost a village," said Middleton, 84, an Edmonds resident since 1953. "We had an inn, a post office, a tavern, a fire station -- and the Seattle Heights Community Club."
Before Highway 99 became a major north-south thoroughfare, Seattle Heights was a bustling community of Pacific Northwest transplants, loggers, shopkeepers and others who lived in what was once a self-contained, rural community.
Now part of Lynnwood and Edmonds, the former Seattle Heights area straddles two to three blocks north and south of 212th Street SW, as far west as 76th Avenue W. and as far east as Halls Lake.
The Interurban trolly line stopped in Seattle Heights, next to what today is 213th Street SW and 66th Avenue W. That was the final Interurban stop for years, until new stops were added in Alderwood Manor and Everett. The Interurban line ceased operation in 1939. Today, its route is preserved as a pedestrian and bicycle path known as the Interurban Trail.
Middleton's father, Adrian, an Arizona transplant, moved to Seattle Heights in 1911 and bought the Seattle Heights store on 66th from Finnish immigrant John Lambe, according to the 1990 book "Lynnwood: the Land, the People, the City," by Judith M. Broom, edited by Randall M. Dodd.
Eventually, the elder Middleton moved his store farther west. In 1924, he bought his last location, at the intersection of the brand-new Highway 99 and 212th Street SW, today the site of a Jack-in-the-Box restaurant. There, he sold groceries, feed and garden tools. The site included a Texaco gas station.
One former resident remembered running to the post office as a kid.
"As little kids, we used to run across Highway 99 and get our mail and then older ladies would have us pick up their mail, 'cause they didn't want to run across the highway," said Fern Thompson, the youngest child in a family that included the late Mountlake Terrace High School basketball coach Merle Blevins and his brother, Dean.
Anchoring the community were leaders that included Clarence Crary, the area's first fire chief for what would eventually become Snohomish County Fire District 1. Another name well-known to anyone growing up in the area was Carl Eisen, who owned a car-repair garage at the corner of 212th Street SW and Highway 99.
Like many of his peers, LeRoy Middleton attended Esperance Elementary School, then Edmonds Elementary and Edmonds High School.
"Of course, I would take the bus to school," Middleton said. "It would take forever to get home."
It was an era of gravel roads, backyard chicken coops and horses as transportation.
City buses didn't come to the area until the late 1950s.
Area residents formed the Seattle Heights Community Club in the early part of the last century and it became the social hub.
The Eisen family built a pavilion at Halls Lake, which was a destination for hundreds of Seattle residents every summer.
"I and my buddies would climb the fence and they'd always give free ice cream to the kids," LeRoy Middleton said.
Roadside taverns, also known as road houses, sprang up along Highway 99, and Middleton recalled the Blakewood Inn, a dance hall with a bar. Other venues, where adults brought their own liquor and listened to music, included The Jungle Inn and El Rancho.
The younger Middleton, who would go on to form a surveying partnership known as Reid-Middleton, never took to the grocery business, though he served for a while as assistant post master. He remembers tough times during the Great Depression, when business was particularly slow for his father's store.
Once the highway opened in 1924, shopkeepers saw the advantage of catering to the influx of automobiles passing through. Still, traffic in the 1930s wasn't anywhere close to what it is today, Middleton said.
"I can remember in the summertime, sitting on the sidewalk next to my dad's store and counting the number of cars that went by all day," he said.
LeRoy Middleton remembers 212th as part of a multiblock area once known as Seattle Heights. It's where he grew up and where the retired surveyor formed his earliest memories.
"I suppose you could call it almost a village," said Middleton, 84, an Edmonds resident since 1953. "We had an inn, a post office, a tavern, a fire station -- and the Seattle Heights Community Club."
Before Highway 99 became a major north-south thoroughfare, Seattle Heights was a bustling community of Pacific Northwest transplants, loggers, shopkeepers and others who lived in what was once a self-contained, rural community.
Now part of Lynnwood and Edmonds, the former Seattle Heights area straddles two to three blocks north and south of 212th Street SW, as far west as 76th Avenue W. and as far east as Halls Lake.
The Interurban trolly line stopped in Seattle Heights, next to what today is 213th Street SW and 66th Avenue W. That was the final Interurban stop for years, until new stops were added in Alderwood Manor and Everett. The Interurban line ceased operation in 1939. Today, its route is preserved as a pedestrian and bicycle path known as the Interurban Trail.
Middleton's father, Adrian, an Arizona transplant, moved to Seattle Heights in 1911 and bought the Seattle Heights store on 66th from Finnish immigrant John Lambe, according to the 1990 book "Lynnwood: the Land, the People, the City," by Judith M. Broom, edited by Randall M. Dodd.
Eventually, the elder Middleton moved his store farther west. In 1924, he bought his last location, at the intersection of the brand-new Highway 99 and 212th Street SW, today the site of a Jack-in-the-Box restaurant. There, he sold groceries, feed and garden tools. The site included a Texaco gas station.
One former resident remembered running to the post office as a kid.
"As little kids, we used to run across Highway 99 and get our mail and then older ladies would have us pick up their mail, 'cause they didn't want to run across the highway," said Fern Thompson, the youngest child in a family that included the late Mountlake Terrace High School basketball coach Merle Blevins and his brother, Dean.
Anchoring the community were leaders that included Clarence Crary, the area's first fire chief for what would eventually become Snohomish County Fire District 1. Another name well-known to anyone growing up in the area was Carl Eisen, who owned a car-repair garage at the corner of 212th Street SW and Highway 99.
Like many of his peers, LeRoy Middleton attended Esperance Elementary School, then Edmonds Elementary and Edmonds High School.
"Of course, I would take the bus to school," Middleton said. "It would take forever to get home."
It was an era of gravel roads, backyard chicken coops and horses as transportation.
City buses didn't come to the area until the late 1950s.
Area residents formed the Seattle Heights Community Club in the early part of the last century and it became the social hub.
The Eisen family built a pavilion at Halls Lake, which was a destination for hundreds of Seattle residents every summer.
"I and my buddies would climb the fence and they'd always give free ice cream to the kids," LeRoy Middleton said.
Roadside taverns, also known as road houses, sprang up along Highway 99, and Middleton recalled the Blakewood Inn, a dance hall with a bar. Other venues, where adults brought their own liquor and listened to music, included The Jungle Inn and El Rancho.
The younger Middleton, who would go on to form a surveying partnership known as Reid-Middleton, never took to the grocery business, though he served for a while as assistant post master. He remembers tough times during the Great Depression, when business was particularly slow for his father's store.
Once the highway opened in 1924, shopkeepers saw the advantage of catering to the influx of automobiles passing through. Still, traffic in the 1930s wasn't anywhere close to what it is today, Middleton said.
"I can remember in the summertime, sitting on the sidewalk next to my dad's store and counting the number of cars that went by all day," he said.
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