Railroaded? Everett historian will explain

In 1888, Snohomish got its railroad, but didn’t get all it bargained for.

Everett Public Library Northwest Room historian David Dilgard promises to tell what happened when the Seattle, Lake Shore &Eastern Railway came to Snohomish. This free program is scheduled for 2 p.m. Sunday at the Everett Public Library Auditorium, 2702 Hoyt Avenue in Everett.

Dilgard said Snohomish’s town fathers in the 1880s agitated hard for a railroad, anxious to link the town’s logging and lumber concerns to markets north and south, and maybe link up to a transcontinental line.

Speculation about the railroad’s coming fueled the construction of many of the notable buildings in the downtown core. The Snohomish Eye’s agricultural editor George W. Head even wrote a song about the railroad’s coming, called “When the Lake Shore &Eastern Is Done.”

Here’s a verse:

A place that for years has been counted as dead,

To new business and life it will come;

We all can have ‘wealth’ to go where we please

When the railroad finally did come, it didn’t quite turn out as foreseen. The rest will be explained by Dilgard on Sunday. For more information, call 425-257-8000.