EVERETT – For decades, it suffocated under a thick concrete coating of seagull surprise.
A thorough cleaning and a few coats of paint later, the bell tower dome atop Snohomish County’s historic Mission Building courthouse looks like a dawning sun on the horizon.
The once grimy dome has returned to its former golden yellow beauty.
“It looks nice and bright and clean, and I love that,” Everett historian David Dilgard said.
The roof of the mission-style stucco building is receiving a $360,000 overhaul, paid in part by a $119,000 historic preservation grant.
A construction crew hired to put a new roof on the building recently blasted away the bird droppings on the bell tower.
Crews carefully plucked a paint chip that helped them match the dome’s original color.
The Mission Building is nearly 100 years old and on the National Register of Historic Places.
It opened in 1911 at the corner of Pacific and Wetmore avenues. It replaced the former courthouse that was built in 1898 but burned down in 1909.
The building served as the combined county courthouse and administration building.
“You can see the problem we have with seagulls,” county facilities director Mark Thunberg said. “Seagulls love the building.”
Seagulls perch on the top of the dome, inside the bell tower and along the roof ridge, leaving their mark everywhere.
“They’re ornery,” Thunberg said.
Construction crews have carefully removed thousands of clay tiles from the roof and added plywood and a waterproof membrane. Only a few dozen of the fragile clay tiles have broken, and the county has enough replacements.
They’ll be nailed in place with copper nails by the end of the month, Thunberg said.
“Now when I take history tours by there, I don’t need to hang my head anymore,” Dilgard said. “It’s starting to look like the National Historic Register property that it is.”
Crews were in for a non-bird-related surprise when they began inspecting the bell and clock tower.
Beneath the west-facing stucco facade, crews found what appeared to be the original location of the antique mechanical clock – located 15-feet lower than where the clock is today.
Also, while chiseling into the wall, workers discovered a bank checkbook from “The First National Bank of Everett, Washington.”
It might have fallen out of a pocket of one of the original carpenters more than a century ago, said Artur Rojsza of Artus Construction Company in Lynnwood.
It’s unclear when the bell tower dome was last cleaned, Thunberg said.
Now that it is being restored to former grandeur, county officials hope for a state grant to restore the building’s old windows.
And what’s the straight poop on maintenance?
“It will be cleaned on a more regular basis,” Thunberg said.
Reporter Jeff Switzer: 425-339-3452 or jswitzer@heraldnet.com.
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