Reminders of our communities’ histories are important things to preserve. For the past several years, one local group has found an increasingly popular way to celebrate this idea. Historic Everett, a nonprofit group, this weekend begins its sixth year of public walking tours.
“The Historic Homes tour has had over 500 people attend for the last three straight years, so that’s the most popular of the tour programs” Historic Everett board member David Chrisman said, noting that the others usually end up with around 40 to 50 people, which is “good, considering that we started six years ago with only a handful of participants.”
“The tours came out of forming the group; specifically from the mission to provide education and resources to the public and members about the area’s cultural history and architectural heritage,” Chrisman said.
The historic downtown and cemetery tours each take approximately 90 minutes, while the Mukilteo tour lasts two hours and the Historic Homes Tour lasts three hours, he said. Participants can ask questions as the tours are in progress, he said, noting that there are no scheduled question-and-answer periods.
Saturday’s Evergreen Cemetery tour will include stops at the resting places of state legislators, Everett mayors, Civil War veterans and other sites, such as an unmarked grave containing only a young boy’s arm, and discussion of events such as the Wellington train disaster, an avalanche that struck a passenger train in the Cascade Range in 1910, killing 96.
The routes for the downtown walking tours differ slightly every year, Chrisman said, and this year will concentrate on Colby Avenue from the 1950s to today, looking at architecture styles, business changes and more, with a showing of old photos so participants can really see the differences.
August’s Mukilteo tour, with historian David Dilgard leading the discussion and giving a slide show, will look at that city and its pioneers, as well as featuring cemetery and lighthouse tours.
September’s Historic Everett homes tour takes patrons through numerous historic downtown Everett homes, focusing on woodworking, furnishings and more.
“Cities may have cemetery tours, like Mukilteo, and home tours, like Snohomish, but in addition to our cemetery and home tours, Historic Everett visits those other local cities, as well, to see how their history and architecture is related to ours,” Chrisman said. “You can learn how different cities have addressed growth and find preservation success stories.
“We do a verbal marketing survey afterward, asking how people heard about us and whether they’ve gone before. And we find that over half usually have never gone on a tour before, so we are able to broaden our audience each time.”
The tours are rain-or-shine events, and there are no age limits. Children under age 10 can even participate for free.
“The cemetery tour is the only one with a hillier landscape,” Chrisman said, “so we just suggest they bring sturdy shoes.”
Proceeds from the tours go toward supporting historic preservation for the community, which, essentially, enables future tours and events to take place, Chrisman said.
“For instance,” he said, “if we didn’t have the charming historic Everett Theatre in years to come for the community to enjoy, people would have less of a connection to what makes this place so special. Cities that have preserved treasured buildings, like classic theaters, have used those successes as bragging rights to entice visitors and businesses to their downtowns.”
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