President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s appearance onstage Saturday in the form of “Ed Asner as FDR” won’t be Snohomish County’s first brush with the 32nd president.
The real FDR made one brief stop in Snohomish County as president, but he barely stayed long enough for a cup of coffee.
A crowd estimated at more than 5,000 people turned out to see Roosevelt at the Great Northern railyards in Everett on Oct. 1, 1937. They waited late into the night before FDR finally made a brief appearance.
The Everett Herald reported at the time: “Excusing his speaking voice as being ‘tired from the long trip around your beautiful Olympic peninsula and from speaking at Tacoma,’ the president expressed his pleasure on being in Everett.”
• Take a look at the next day’s Herald front page (large image).
Roosevelt “expressed sorrow that he was arriving in Everett as such a late hour and, pointing out that he was to inspect the Grand Coulee dam on the following day, declared that he was going straight to bed the minute the train left Everett.” It then left Everett as fast as its engine could take it.
So if you go and see “FDR” in Edmonds, you’ll probably get a much better look.
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