Everett, Washington
Everett (/ˈɛvərɪt/; Lushootseed: dᶻəɬigʷəd) is the county seat and most populous city of Snohomish County, Washington, United States. It is 25 miles (40 km) north of Seattle and is one of the main cities in the metropolitan area and the Puget Sound region. Everett is the seventh-most populous city in the state by population, with 110,629 residents as of the 2020 census. The city is primarily situated on a peninsula at the mouth of the Snohomish River along Port Gardner Bay, an inlet of Possession Sound (itself part of Puget Sound), and extends to the south and west.
Everett
dᶻəɬigʷəd
The Port Gardner Peninsula has been inhabited by the Snohomish people for thousands of years, whose main settlement, hibulb, was located at Preston Point near the mouth of the river. Modern settlement in the area began with loggers and homesteaders arriving in the 1860s, but plans to build a city were not conceived until 1890. A consortium of East Coast investors seeking to build a major industrial city acquired land in the area and filed a plat for "Everett", which they named in honor of Everett Colby, the son of investor Charles L. Colby. The city was incorporated in 1893, shortly after the arrival of the Great Northern Railway, and prospered as a major lumber center with several large sawmills. Everett became the county seat in 1897 after a dispute with Snohomish contested over several elections and a Supreme Court case. The city was the site of labor unrest during the 1910s, which culminated in the Everett massacre in 1916 that killed several members of the Industrial Workers of the World.
The area was connected by new interurban railways and highway bridges in the 1920s, transforming it into a major commercial hub, and gained an airport at Paine Field in 1936. The city's economy transitioned away from lumber and towards aerospace after World War II, with the construction of Boeing's aircraft assembly plant at Paine Field in 1967. Boeing's presence brought additional industrial and commercial development to Everett, as well as new residential neighborhoods to the south and west of the peninsula that was annexed by the city. Boeing remains the city's largest employer, alongside the U.S. Navy, which has operated Naval Station Everett since 1994.
Everett remains a major employment center for Snohomish County, but has also become a bedroom community for Seattle in recent decades. It is connected to Seattle by Interstate 5 and various public transit services at Everett Station, including the Sounder commuter train, Amtrak, and commuter buses. Everett stages several annual festivals and is also home to minor league sports teams, including the Everett Silvertips at Angel of the Winds Arena and Everett Aquasox at Funko Field.
History[edit]
Prehistory and Hibulb village[edit]
The earliest humans entered the Puget Sound region around 12,000 years before present, after the recession of the Vashon Glacier.[5] The earliest evidence of human habitation at what is now Everett dates back to approximately 2,000 years before present.[6] The Snohomish people, who had many villages along the Snohomish River and Whibey and Camano Islands, had their principal settlement at Preston Point, known in Lushootseed as hibulb.[7][8][9] The village of Hibulb was located below the bluff at the mouth of the Snohomish River. As it was the main settlement, Hibulb was heavily fortified by a large cedar palisade to deter attackers. It held considerable influence over other settlements, although they were autonomous from Hibulb.[10][11]
Hibulb was one of the largest Snohomish villages as well as the most important, and it featured the biggest potlatch house of all the Snohomish lands. In addition, there were four other large cedar longhouses, each around 100 feet long and 40 feet wide. There were numerous other smaller longhouses and other structures as well.[10]
According to Snohomish tradition, dukʷibəɬ, the transformer deity in the traditional religion of the Lushootseed-speaking peoples of Puget Sound, originally placed the Snohomish at hibulb when he went to Muckilteo (bək̓ʷəɬtiwʔ) and changed everything to the way it is today. To the Snohomish, hibulb was their original village and place of origin.[12] In the early 1800s, there were several smallpox and measles epidemics which ravaged the Snohomish population, which was possibly over 6,000.[13] Later, in the 1820s, there was a massive landslide at Camano Head (Lushootseed: x̌ʷuyšəd)[7] which destroyed the village there. The landslide caused a massive tidal wave which wiped out the village on the nearby Hat Island (Lushootseed: č̓əč̓əsəliʔ).[8] The tidal wave continued to Hibulb, and almost washed away the village, however the village recovered.[14]
In 2013, the City of Everett, working in cooperation with the Tulalip Tribes, installed signage at Legion Park, which displays illustrations of the village and information about the history of the village and of the region as a whole. The park is located on top of the bluff, overlooking the village site and the bay.[15]
In Lushootseed, the modern city of Everett has two names: dᶻəɬigʷəd,[7][8] which comes from the name of Forgotten Creek near the waterfront,[16] or hibulb,[7] which comes from the name of Preston Point and the village.[8] The name hibulb comes from hibuləb, which means "water bubbling out of the ground." It is related to the word bələwəb, meaning "boiling" or "bubbling."[16][8]
Everett
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Everett has the following sister city relationships:[469]
