Editor’s note: This is the second of a three-part series looking at Mill Creek’s history as the city approaches its 20th anniversary.
With urban sprawl surrounding it today — in effect linking it to Everett, Lynnwood and points beyond in one large Puget Sound megalopolis — it might be hard for some Mill Creek residents to imagine the city as once being in the middle of nowhere. And it wasn’t all that long ago that that was the case.
Donna Michelson remembers that time.
The 25-year resident and current city council member remembers when she and her husband Bruce first visited Mill Creek 30 years ago — 10 years before Mill Creek became an incorporated city.
Back then, Mill Creek was little more than a developer’s concept, a master-planned community that would be built around a golf course in a dense wooded setting a few miles east of I-5.
“We lived in south Everett and at that time a lot of housing areas were going up,” Donna Michelson said. “We saw a place called Mill Creek going up around a golf course. The concept was kinda cool; it was a new concept.”
The Michelsons got into their car and drove along a narrow two-lane road called the Bothell-Everett Highway. Going through the forest, there were no traffic lights, and they knew when they had to turn to go the sales office when they approached an intersection that only had a health food store on one corner.
They didn’t buy a home then; they waited another five years before buying their current home in the Fairway subdivision.
“We didn’t think the little community would build out,” Michelson said. “But we saw it was for real.”
It was a concept being sold by United Development Corporation, a Japanese conglomerate that had a vision for several hundred acres of former farmland. That vision included a golf course, homes and condominiums — and preserving as much of the natural environment as possible.
“What impressed me was how United did the development,” said Chris Castaneda, co-owner of Mill Creek’s John L. Scott real estate office who was a vice-president for United starting in 1977. “They preserved the environment, all these trees, and a lot of developers clear-cut the trees. United was careful to preserve the natural environment.”
With current home prices in Mill Creek running approximately $300,000, it may be hard to believe that in the mid-1970s, one could buy a new home in Mill Creek for just $49,500.
“At the outset the concept just took off,” said Rolf H. Falk, who was a sales agent for United Development in the 1970s. “It was pretty successful.”
Such success necessitated moving the Mill Creek sales office several times. According to Falk, the first sales office stood where the Mill Creek Country Club’s pro shop is now. It was later moved to a home in the Springtree subdivision, right on the corner with present-day Village Green Drive. The sales offices later moved to Woodfern, then Cottonwood, and finally to the building where John L. Scott is now.
Shortly after the first homes were occupied, United Development created the Mill Creek Community Association, a homeowner’s association that still has sway over a majority of the city’s neighborhoods. The non-profit organization was officially formed Dec. 24, 1974, and still holds sway over issues like tree-cutting and neighborhood aesthetics.
In the early days, United Development held considerable sway in the MCCA, as it filled half the positions on the organization’s board of directors. It relinquished that duty in 1982, one year before Mill Creek incorporated.
Early residents didn’t have some of the luxuries today’s residents have. Castaneda recalled one of the only ‘local’ dining options residents had.
“All I can remember was it had a big neon sign that said ‘EAT’,” she said.
Today’s residents can get most goods and services by taking a trip to a shopping center along the Bothell-Everett Highway, and those options may change if the Town Center project comes together as envisioned. Things were different in the community’s early days.
“We used to have to go to Fred Meyer in Lynnwood for everything,” Michelson said.
That changed in the late 1970s, when the area’s first shopping center opened on the northwest corner of the Bothell-Everett Highway and 164th Street SE. It was anchored, as it is today, by Albertsons, and had a location of the old Ernst’s hardware store chain.
On Sept. 29, 1983, Mill Creek incorporated after a majority of residents passed a referendum. It became the first city in Snohomish County to incorporate since Brier formed in 1965. The first city hall was a meeting room at United Development’s offices, which is today occupied by the John L. Scott office.
Many early residents are still in Mill Creek. Some are still in their homes, while others have downsized their lives and moved into condos. One such resident is Falk, who has lived in his Country Place condominium, right along the eighth hole at the Mill Creek Country Club, since 1976.
“You knew everybody back then,” he said. “You knew their kids, cats, dogs, and the place just kept mushrooming.”
Castaneda said, “It’s always been a family area. It was designed with families in mind, with all the trails and parks.”
The growth of families in the area eventually necessitated the Everett School District to open a high school in Mill Creek’s city limits. Henry Jackson High School, named for one of Washington’s U.S. Senators, opened on Sept. 7, 1994.
Coming next week: Mill Creek Sports Park, Town Center, and the city’s future. Enterprise writer Shanti Hahler contributed to this report.
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