Everett’s quasquicentennial party begins

EVERETT — Scott Davison didn’t set out Saturday morning to learn more about his city.

Mainly, he needed to make a phone call and his wife had the one cellphone they share.

So the Everett man — a father of five daughters and grandfather of 14 — headed down to the Everett Station where he knew there was a pay phone, an increasingly rare mode of communication to find.

“Prehistoric,” he said with a chuckle.

So it was happenstance rather than planning that brought him to one in a series of celebrations of the city he calls home, turning 125 years old.

And Davison is glad for that.

He left more than an hour later with an Everett Transit bagful of literature about local labor organizations and public transportation. Growing up, he always enjoyed taking Metro buses in King County and he’s smitten with double-deckers that are now part of the Community Transit fleet.

Davison has toyed with the idea of a second career when he retires from Boeing some day. On Saturday, he learned more about potential employment as a bus driver and how to go about getting his commercial driver’s license.

“Perfect weather and a good day,” he said, summing up his unexpected stop.

Davison was among the hundreds of people who paid a visit to the nearly two dozen activity booths that included arts and crafts, photos and face painting, bean bag tosses and bingo and plenty of information about city and regional services.

There also were historical bus and walking tours, kittens awaiting adoption from the Everett Animal Shelter, heavy equipment to explore and a chance to climb into the front seat and ring the bell of a gleaming 1938 fire truck.

Easily approachable within the crowd were police Chief Dan Templeman and new fire Chief Dave DeMarco.

The fire trucks and firefighters were a hit with the youngsters.

By noon roughly 150 plastic fire helmets, including about 100 pink ones, had been given away.

“Everyone likes the little plastic helmets,” DeMarco said.

On a day the city looked back at its first 125 years, the Everett Museum of History offered a history scavenger hunt for passersby with a questionnaire that included six questions that could be found at various booths.

Backers hope the museum will open downtown in 2020, saying in promotional material handed out Saturday: “We are building a future for our past.”

The museum’s collection includes roughly 65,000 artifacts in three storage locations.

The city is planning other events throughout the summer to mark 125 years.

The Everett Public Library, for instance, will include a chance for folks to add a message to a time capsule to be opened in 2068.

Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446; stevick@heraldnet.com.