The city of Everett, a Pacific Rim city situated on Port Gardiner Bay, is located in Snohomish County, 26 miles north of downtown Seattle, bordering Puget Sound to the west. The city is the seat of Snohomish County, in northwestern Washington. As a port, at the mouth of the Snohomish River on Port Gardner Bay (an inlet of Puget Sound), near Seattle, Everett was founded in 1892, as the site of the western terminus of a transcontinental railroad (completed 1893). It was named by Charles L. Colby, one of it's founders, for his son, Everett.
In Everett's early years, Tacoma lumberman Henry Hewitt, formed a partnership with Colgate Hoyt and Charles Colby, calling it "The Puget Sound Reduction Company," with financial backing from the famous financier, John D. Rockefeller, who had invested in the Monte Cristo mines. The building of a railroad was part of the plan, for transporting ore from the mountains, to the smelter in Everett. Rockefeller had a railroad constructed to bring down the ore for smelting, to the Everett area, which was a new city at that time.
Monte Cristo, where the mining interest was situated, was located in the Cascade Mountains, and was destined to become Washington's most famous gold and silver mining town of the 1890s. The city of Everett never became the terminal of the Great Northern Railroad which John D. Rockefeller envisioned however. Financial disasters hit the Everett area hard, causing panics in 1893 and 1907, and active mining ended a short time before World War I began. Rockefeller eventually pulled up stakes, and looked elsewhere for investment possibilities. By 1900, Everett's industrial investments, created a thriving city, with a multitude of job opportunities for settlers, and newly arriving immigrants.
Everett, once a mill-town dependant on wood based industries, is today, the labor-force of 90,000. It is predominently employed in technology and service based industries. Major industries of the area, include the shipping of lumber, aluminum ore, and other cargo; commercial fishing; tourism; and the manufacture of aircraft and pulp and paper.
A community college, a symphony, and a cultural arts center are located here. Work has begun on a $300 million North Marina enterprise with additional boat moorage for the west coast's 2nd largest marina, commercial and retail businesses, condominiums and other amenities to the Everett bay front. There is talk of a similar development on the former Nord Door factory site to the north. Plans are underway for mixed development along Everett's Snohomish Riverside; there are hundreds of acres of vacant property that once housed mills and Everett's landfill. The Skotdal family, responsible for many recent downtown improvements, plan to build a 19-story skyscraper, Everett's tallest, on the northwest corner of Hewitt and Wetmore avenues. Other downtown and south Everett high-rises are on the drawing board.
