EVERETT — On the surface, the trash-strewn foot of Hewitt Avenue near Port Gardner is too humdrum these days to attract much attention.
Yet if the red brick road there could talk, passersby would learn the area holds a special place in Everett’s history.
It’s where countless immigrants arrived in town at the Great Northern Railway depot and where at least seven men at the city docks were gunned down in the 1916 Everett Massacre — one of the Pacific Northwest’s bloodiest labor disputes.
Now some in town have taken it upon themselves to turn the strip of land beneath a railroad trestle into a historic park.
In 2006, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway filed plans with the city to tear down the steel bridge and to replace it with a 12-foot high dirt berm.
Several concerned residents filed appeals against the railroad’s plans with the city, arguing the application was incomplete and that it failed to recognize the historic significance of the property.
BNSF made no mention of the Everett Massacre, which took place a few hundred feet away, or that the site is possibly where Dennis Brigham, the first non-native settler to arrive in Everett, built a cabin where he lived in 1861.
It’s also believed that American Indians spent summers at the site where fresh water flowed from nearby Forgotten Creek.
BNSF has since withdrawn its application and residents have talked with the city parks department and office of neighborhoods about gaining support for a historic park.
Nothing is official yet.
Still, residents aren’t waiting.
During the summer, a few dozen people spent a Saturday morning mowing grass and hauling away more than 20 trash bags of brush and debris from the fenced-off property.
Another work party is planned for this Saturday.
Eventually, Everett’s history buffs envision a parklike setting with historic markers educating people about the Milltown site where rail met sail.
Reporter David Chircop: 425-339-3429 or dchircop@heraldnet.com.
Pitch in
Advocates for a historic park at the west end of Hewitt Avenue will hold a work party Feb. 9 at 10 a.m. at the corner of Hewitt Avenue and Bond Street.
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