A hiking and walking friend, Linda Paros, alerted me a few weeks ago that the ornate Weyerhaeuser building in Everett was up on moving blocks. What’s up? she asked. The Seattle Times and the Everett Herald had the answer in mid-July. It’s moving–again.
The 93-year-old structure first sat at the foot of Pacific Avenue near Weyerhaeuser’s Mill A, the largest lumber mill in the world when it was built in 1912. Although Weyerhaeuser headquarters was in Tacoma, near the Northern Pacific Railroad, from which Frederick Weyerhaeuser had bought timberland, the company’s largest mills were in Everett. The local office building was designed by architect Carl Gould in a Gothic style to showcase local wood products from fir, cedar, and hemlock. Fifteen years later it was barged to sit near Mill B on the Snohomish River. After Mill B closed in 1979, the office moved again in 1984 to Marina Village to house the Everett Chamber of Commerce near the city’s newer economic enterprise, the U.S. Navy’s Homeport.
It will move this year to a development in the Port of Everett’s Central Marina, retaining its historic claim to the waterfront. If nothing else, the building has showcased the strength of its structure. The building is included in the Everett chapter of Walking Washington’s History: Ten Cities.
