This year, the town of Lowell is celebrating a colorful 150 years of history that includes major industrial changes, a sensational ax murder and some of the finest jewels in Craftsman architecture.
As part of the 150th anniversary celebration, there will be a free Lowell Home and Garden Tour on Saturday with a 10 a.m. kickoff talk by Everett Public Library historian David Dilgard at the Lowell Community Church, 5218 S. Second Ave.
Maps of the self-guided tour will be available in the church’s upper sanctuary.
Dilgard’s talk will include a slide presentation of some of the oldest photographs still around of Lowell, a town that began on the west bank of the Snohomish River in 1863.
Logging was the first major industry with a lumber mill started by E.D. Smith.
Dilgard said he would talk about Lowell’s logging past and its lineage as a town with an industrial backbone, from logging mills to paper mills to iron works.
A vision of the settlers of the time was that Lowell, Wash., would have a lot in common with Lowell, Mass., with a river running through it lined with factories.
Besides industry, the town had its share of characters, including Charles Seybert, who was briefly Snohomish County sheriff but who was murdered.
“His murder was one of the most sensational crimes of the 1800s,” Dilgard said. “If you get a small town where there are one or two ax murders then you are on the map.”
“Lowell is a cornucopia of cottages and where the Craftsman style movement was in full swing so there’s a lot of cool stuff there that way,” Dilgard said.
Some of the homes will include the millwright cottages built by architect Fred Sexton.
Visitors will be encouraged to visit the riverfront park and walk along the Snohomish River.
“We are just celebrating our Lowell neighborhood and how it is,” said Gail Chism, whose 1918 house is on the tour. “And we want people to come to town for Lowell Days Aug. 10.”
For further information call Chism at 425-258-9381.
Theresa Goffredo: 425-339-3424; tgoffredo@heraldnet.com.
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