City of Edmonds - Washington

Edmonds High School

The first high school within a 20-mile territory opend in 1910 as a two-story brick, classical revival design building. When the cornerstone was laid on November 30, 1909, speeches noted the majestic beauty of the site with its sweeping view of Puget Sound that “no artist has yet been able to reproduce, no hand of man can ever obliterate, and it is free to us from this spot for all time.”

Edmonds population was booming in the first part of the 20th century. The school building was expanded in 1920 and again in 1939 with a new Public Works-funded Art Moderne addition, including offices, a larger gym, and full size auditorium with balcony. As the community continued to grow, a new high school was built a mile east of downtown and the school became Edmonds Junior High in 1957.

When the junior high school moved to a new building in the mid-1970s, Puget Sound Christian College acquired the property. The school’s auditorium continued to be available for community use by local arts organizations.

In 2001, the Edmonds Public Facilities District purchased the site to develop a regional arts center. Creation of the Edmonds Center for the Arts necessitated removing the original 1910 structure to make way for parking and other amenities. The arts center opened in 2006. It preserves many features of the 1939 structure and auditorium, including graffiti in the stage wings from generations of students and the memories of all of the people who performed on its stage.

Philips Motorcourt

In the earliest days of Edmonds, overland travel was slow and uncertain. The famous Puget Sound "Mosquito Fleet" of steamboats provided the first fast and reliable transport to Edmonds in the late 1800s. When the railroad began passenger service with twelve trains a day in 1910, land-based travel became much more convenient. However, it was the growth in private car ownership and the development of a network of roads, highways, and auto ferries that spurred a population boom for Edmonds in the middle of the 20th century.

Edmonds prominent pioneer A.M. Yost was the first resident to purchase an automobile in June of 1911. Yost and his family demonstrated their faith in this new form of transportation by founding the Yost Auto Company at 5th Avenue South and Dayton Street in 1913.

The Phillips Motorcourt was constructed by Donald Phillips in 1941 to serve motorists passing through Edmonds, offering not just a place for a weary traveler to sleep but also a garage to keep the family car warm and dry. The buildings were converted into the apartments seen today. 

Fourth Avenue North Houses

This block of Fourth Avenue North between Edmonds and Bell Streets was home to many families.  Dozens of children from the surrounding neighborhood would gather here to play Red Rover, kickball, and to bicycle and roller skate. Collective memories include people coming out of their homes to watch Sputnik, the first manmade object in space, pass overhead in 1957.

The street still offers several examples of homes built in Edmonds after 1900, when the shingle mills were humming along the waterfront and steamboat service linked the town to the rest of a developing Puget Sound region. With lumber readily available from nearby mills, early Edmonds home builders took advantage of local materials, creating dwellings with only a simple wooden frame, commonly built on post and pier foundations.

A walk along Fourth Avenue North presents a wide spectrum of architectural styles. The August Johnson House was originally built in 1905 on the other side of the street from its current location. The Queen Anne style home features decorative shingles, a wide hip-roof front porch and elaborately carved brackets. It was moved to this location in 1996 to save it from demolition. Several residential and community buildings were relocated from one parcel to another throughout the 20th century.

Roscoe House

Christopher T. Roscoe, Sr. moved to Edmonds with his family in 1888. Records suggest that his house was built by him around  1889. The house was moved in 1916 to Fourth Avenue North, next door to his brother, C.T. Roscoe's home. In 1918, Mr. Roscoe raised the house to build a two-foot crawl space underneath. Over the years, the house has served as multi-family housing, and as office and retail space. 

Mr. Roscoe and his wife had ten children, including sons Reuben and Edwin who co-owned the Brackett & Roscoe Grocery Store with Dan Brackett. For the next half-century, Roscoe and his descendants played central roles in Edmonds’ civic life. Upon Edmonds' incorporation in 1890, Mr. Roscoe was elected the first Treasurer. The following year he became a founding member of Edmonds' first fraternal organization, Lodge No. 96 Independent Order of Odd Fellows (I.O.O.F), and served one year in 1895 as Mayor. In 1922, Roscoe was elected Snohomish County Prosecuting Attorney, where he served for a number of years.

First Baptist Church

The First Baptist Church of Edmonds was the second church constructed in downtown. Starting with just ten members in 1909, the parishioners bought land and built a modest 1900 square-foot single-story church at the corner of Sixth Avenue North and Edmonds Street (formerly Hebe Way). In 1929, the congregation purchased a lot two blocks to the west at Fourth Avenue North and Bell Street and moved the building to the new site, adding a basement to the foundation. In 1946, the church moved a house onto the east end of the lot to serve as a parsonage. A few years later the parsonage and the church were joined together, and the church was extensively remodeled to the structure's present form.  The white picket fence that graces the front of the property was added in the 1980s.

In 1986, the City of Edmonds removed the church's beloved Lebanon Cedar Tree, citing danger to underground utilities, sidewalks, and pedestrians. The landmark tree was planted in the 1930s and symbolized strength and endurance to the small congregation. In 2003, with membership down to only 19 parishioners, the church merged with the Bothell-based Northshore Baptist Church, becoming North Sound Church. It is the oldest house of worship remaining in downtown Edmonds. 

Doctor's Offices

110 Fourth Avenue North

Art Deco design in the arts and architecture was a 1920s French innovation that became internationally popular. Though small in size, this Art Deco brick commercial building is significant for its style and history and is one of very few surviving structures from the late 1930s. Ground was broken for this building in April 1938 ts red brick cladding is beautifully detailed with buff colored bricks at the corners and windows.  A decorative diamond shaped tile in the peaked parapet illustrates the rod of Asclepius, a medical symbol, between the letters M and D, indicating the building's origins.

Constructed as an office for Dr. Frank J. Kenny and Dr. M. O. Magnuson, over the years it has housed different specialty medical practices, dentists, psychotherapists, and numerous small businesses. Dr. Kenny practiced medicine in Edmonds for over half a century.  During World War II, Kenny served as the City Health Officer, was a member of the Municipal Defense Commission and a founding board member of the Edmonds Lions Club in 1946.

117 Fourth Avenue North

Dr. Harry W. Hall constructed this house in 1910. He used it as his office for seventeen years, and then sold it to Otto and Hattie Sorenson in 1927, the same year that Otto was appointed bookkeeper at the State Bank of Edmonds just down the street. Mr. Sorenson also served as Edmond's Postmaster in 1936.  

First School House

Edmonds’ first school opened in 1884 in town founder George Brackett’s feed barn with six students. By 1887 the student body had grown to fifteen, so it was time for a dedicated school building. A one-room schoolhouse was built on the little knoll between Third and Fourth Avenues North, a short distance off of Main Street. But Edmonds was riding an economic boom, and in just two years the student body expanded to 32 children.

Once again, the venerable George Brackett took action, donating a parcel of land at 7th Avenue North and Main Street for a new elementary school. Edmonds Elementary School closed in 1972 was converted to a multi-use recreation facility and renamed for 40-year Edmonds Elementary teacher and principal, and life-long Edmonds resident, Frances Anderson.

In March 1943, an air raid tower was constructed near the old school site, using donated materials and volunteer labor. Volunteers kept watch in the observation tower for invasion from the west during the early years of World War II.

Fourth and Main

Main Street at 4th Avenue is described as the first business block in Edmonds. In 1890, William A. Schumacher constructed a western style "false front" retail building for a general store. Schumacher was also instrumental in founding Edmonds' first bank, which  moved into a new building on the southwest corner of Fourth and Main in August of 1907. The Schumacher Building, as it was named, sold to hardware merchant E. Heberlein the following year. 

Major redevelopment at Fourth and Main was set in motion in July 1909 after a fire burned down the "Jones Block" of buildings on the southeast corner. The fire destroyed the post office, Brackett & Roscoe Grocery, a jewelers, a confectionary, and a hardware store. F. Roscoe Beeson, newly arrived from Indiana, purchased the still smoldering parcel and immediately announced plans for a two-story reinforced concrete building. The half-block long Beeson Building, built in a distinctive Spanish Mission Revival style, opened two years later. Mr. Beeson went on to serve five terms as Mayor of Edmonds, from 1918 to 1923.

The Princess Theater

The current 252-seat Edmonds Theater was formerly the Princess Theater. It is among the best-known buildings lining Main Street. The theater's roots were as a modest movie house called the Union Theater, located across the street from its current location. Originally owned by city father Fred A. Fourtner, the Union Theatre changed owners and names several times before it was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Thomas C. Berry in 1921. The Berrys had grand plans for a first-class movie house and in early 1923 contracted with John McGinnis, local businessman and future City Councilmember, to construct a new theater across the street. The result is the beautiful Art Deco building that still stands today. The theater quickly became an Edmonds landmark and positioned the community as a center for arts and culture in the area.  

The theater was updated in 1938 with new seats, carpets, projection, and sound equipment. Helen Berry passed away a few years later and Mr. and Mrs. Lionel Brown, who had been associated with the running of the theater since the early 1920s, continued to operate the Princess Theater until 1952. During their tenure, a snack bar was added, and the sound and projection equipment modernized once again.

The historic movie house is among the last remaining independent, single-screen movie houses in the state. It is an enduring Edmonds institution and a link to a bygone era of cinema. 

Fifth and Main

Since the days of horse-drawn wagons, the two main roads from the east and the south converged on the intersection of 5th Avenue and Main Street, making it a natural center for civic, cultural and business activities.

On the southeast corner is the Leyda Building, a classic red brick two-story facade. Fred A. Fourtner, businessman, entrepreneur and Edmonds' longest serving mayor, built this combined commercial and residential structure in 1924. It was known as the Fourtner Building until he sold it to Dewey and Cecelia Leyda in 1946. Currently home to Starbucks and
Mar-Ket fish monger, a remarkable variety of Edmonds businesses have called this building home over the decades.

Construction started on the Schneider Building on the northeast corner in 1926. Skaggs United Grocery--later Safeway—was its first business. By the end of that year, the grocery was joined by the Edmonds Post Office in the northern wing of the building.

For many decades the northwest and southwest corners featured wood frame buildings that were typical of Edmonds' early commercial structures. On the north corner, the Reece Building was occupied by Hubbard's insurance office. In the mid-1940s, the Mothershead Building next door held the Bienz Confectionary and Edmonds Diesel Delivery. 

The middle of the intersection, in many ways, can be considered as important as any of the four corners. In the early 1920s the Park Band of Edmonds performed a series of concerts on a bandstand at the center of this broad intersection. The Kiwanis club installed the first decorated Christmas tree in 1927, a practice that carried on for many years. The Edmonds Arts Festival was held as a street fair at Fifth and Main in 1960.

A traffic circle was constructed in the 1970s and an abstract copper fountain, created by local artists Ed Ballew and Howard Duell, was installed in the middle of the circle in 1974. An errant motorist demolished the fountain in 1998. The following year, a public art panel selected artist Benson Shaw to create a new fountain, “Cedar Dreams,” funded by a private donation from the Edmonds Arts Festival Foundation. This project includes artwork in the street paving, benches and sidewalks surrounding the fountain. In 2006, this fountain also suffered vehicular assault, but in true Edmonds spirit, was reconstructed.

I.O.O.F Hall and Telephone Company Building

I.O.O.F. Hall

Edmonds first benevolent fraternal organization, Independent Order of Odd Fellows (I.O.O.F), was founded in 1891 and the organization built their hall a year after the incorporation of the town. The sturdy and spacious two-story wood frame building was the heart of Edmonds' civic and social life for generations. Countless meetings, ceremonies, classes, touring road shows, political rallies, conventions, gala dinners, and church services were held in the hall, and a myriad of commercial enterprises occupied the street level. The taller section to the west is the original structure, with the attached two-story section to the east added in 1927.

Telephone Company Building

In 1899, the City of Edmonds granted a franchise to the Sunset Telegraph and Telephone Company to provide telephone service for the community.  Their single line meandered through the forest using trees as telephone poles and was therefore subject to frequent interruptions from wind and weather.  By 1908,  local businessmen and industrialists had run out of patience with unfulfilled promises for better service and formed the Edmonds Independent Telephone Company, under the  management  of  Daniel M. Yost.  Yost purchased new switchboard equipment and telephones and rapidly expanded service to bring Edmonds up to modern standards. Yost made plans in 1924 for a new concrete company building to be constructed opposite the I.O.O.F. Hall. The Edmonds Independent Telephone Company operated into the early 1940s, with Yost still at the helm, until the plant and business was sold to the Telephone Service Company.

Carnegie Library and Log Cabin

Carnegie Library

The first public library in Edmonds opened in 1901 with a rotating stock of books provided by the Washington State Traveling Library Committee. The classical brick structure which stands today, opened in February 1911 as one of 3,500 Carnegie Libraries built throughout the U.S.  and other countries through a grant program provided by famous industrialist Andrew Carnegie. The books were housed in the upper level and the City of Edmonds offices, meeting rooms, and jail cell were on the lower level. Children who lived in homes across the street in the 1930s to 1940s remember playing in the alley, daring each other to call out to the unfortunates in the jail.

When both the library and the city offices moved to larger facilities in the early 1960s, the Carnegie library building became home to Edmonds' Parks and Recreation Department. When the Parks and Recreation offices moved to the newly dedicated Frances Anderson Center (formerly Edmonds Elementary School) in the early 1970s, members of the recently formed Edmonds-South Snohomish Historical Society approached the Mayor and City Council with a proposal to transform the Carnegie Library into a historical museum. The South Snohomish Edmonds Historical Museum opened in August, 1973. The building is one of only 270 Carnegie Library buildings still in use.

Ganahl-Hanley Log Cabin

Edmonds iconic log cabin was originally built in the 1930s on the estate of Seaview Heights resident Gaston Ganahl. He commissioned a builder who had worked on the Yellowstone National Park guest cabins to create his hand-hewn Douglas fir log house from trees surrounding the building site. The cabin’s second owners, Lee and Dorie Hanley, donated the cabin to the City of Edmonds in 1975. The 26-foot-tall building made an historic two-day journey from Seaview Heights to its current location on 5th Avenue North and Bell Street. Utility crews had to unhook and reconnect overhead wires as the cabin made its way to downtown. In 1990, the cabin became the  home of Edmonds Visitors Center, and a grassroots effort to restore the cabin raised over $100,000 from individual private donations, ensuring its survival into the new century.