Honoring a city’s pioneers

MARYSVILLE – Darlene Scott’s family purchased one, and so did Mary Kirkland’s.

The two Third Street merchants want their families’ histories to be part of Marysville forever, and they hope to focus streetlights instead of spotlights on them.

Scott’s late husband’s family began Carr’s Hardware, and Kirkland’s grandfather started Hilton Pharmacy. They hope other local families will honor their loved ones with a bronze plaque that will help mark the city’s history.

For $3,500, families can purchase an old-fashioned streetlight that will shine on the Third Street business area.

The Marysville Downtown Merchants’ Association is sponsoring the “Street of Families” project to accomplish two goals: Honor pioneer and other local families while enhancing a portion of downtown and help tie it to the $6.4 million State Avenue improvement project.

The nearly year-long State Avenue project is nearing completion, and workers have started to install old-fashioned light poles to replace taller lights that have illuminated downtown for years. But neither the city nor Third Street merchants had money to include the new lighting for Third Street.

For now, light poles will be put up on Third Street between State and Columbia avenues. But merchants and city officials hope they will spread farther east on Third, as well as around the Ebey Slough waterfront, where the city is building a park.

“We’re real excited about the Street of Families project because it continues what the city has started with the State Avenue project,” said Marysville’s chief administrative officer, Mary Swenson.

With the State Avenue project, the city is widening nearly a mile of the road to five lanes, adding wider sidewalks, planting trees, hanging flower baskets and moving some utilities underground.

The deadline for reserving a family streetlight is July 20. For more information, call Scott at 360-659-2292 or Kirkland at 360-653-3978.

Reporter Cathy Logg: 425-339-3437 or logg@heraldnet.com.