Nearly forgotten photos show Everett during a time of change in the '70s
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Neil House / Courtesy of the Everett Public LIbrar
Cars and pedestrians at the intersection of Hewitt and Colby avenues looking northwest, circa 1975 to 1977. Woolworth's, Arthur Murray dance studio, Kress Building, and Medical-Dental Building are all visible.
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Neil House / Courtesy of the Everett Public LIbrar
Pedestrians and cars in front of Frielander & Sons jewelry store on the northeast corner of Colby and Hewitt, between 1975 and 1977.
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Neil House / Courtesy of the Everett Public LIbrar
Pedestrians walk along the 2600 block of Colby Avenue, between 1975 and 1977. Washington Natural Gas Co. is at 2607 Colby Avenue. The Welk Music Center at 2609 Colby Avenue is also pictured.
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Neil House / Courtesy of the Everett Public LIbrar
Workers erect the "Surf II" sculpture by Stanley Wanless on the 2800 block of Colby Avenue. The sculpture is currently on the Everett waterfront at 10th Street.
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Neil House / Courtesy of the Everett Public LIbrar
A man sits in a barber chair in a local barbershop, sometime in 1975 to 1977.
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Neil House / Courtesy of the Everett Public LIbrar
Shown sometime in 1975 to 1977, The Bon Marche department store was located at 2804 Wetmore Ave in the building previously occupied by Rumbaugh-MacLain's. It is currently the site of the Trinity Lutheran College. The Bank of Everett Building and the Knights of Columbus Hall (Masonic Temple) are in the background.
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Neil House / Courtesy of the Everett Public LIbrar
Everett Transit bus No. 7 tuns at the intersection of Colby and Hewitt avenues, sometime around 1975 and 1977. The Woolworth Store at 2824 Colby Ave is visible on the left. The Medical-Dental Building is visible behind that, at 2730 Colby Avenue. View is looking north from Hewitt Avenue.
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Neil House / Courtesy of the Everett Public LIbrar
City of Everett photographer Neil House takes a break to enjoy a hamburger at a lunch counter, sometime in 1975 to 1977.
And there they sat in storage -- until now.
A collection of 752 photos taken in 1970s Everett are available online at the Everett Public Library's web site.
House's work is a scrapbook of 1970s Everett, a time of economic upheaval as the city weathered both the lulls and swells of Boeing and its final years as a mill town.
"It was amazing to me, especially the pictures of downtown," said Melinda Van Wingen, the historian who oversaw the cataloging and digital archiving of the collection.
In 1975 the city hired House, then 24, to take photos of whatever official city business needed photographing: parades, meetings, buildings, streets, projects and people.
House and his Nikon F2 were at the beck-and-call of a half-dozen departments.
House snapped photos of workers spreading asphalt and city councilmen furrowing their brows. He captured Boy Scouts clutching American flags and a grizzled fisherman squatting on a dock. He photographed aeration ponds at the water treatment plant, the city dump and the transit yard.
One story that still makes the rounds at City Hall concerns an airplane shoot over downtown Everett. After peering through a telephoto lens from the front seat of a Cessna, House became violently ill -- to the detriment of the city planner sitting just behind him.
One of his more ho-hum assignments -- photographing the condition of streets -- offers an unintentional benefit for dozens of homeowners today, who can view their homes circa 1975.
House's photos capture a vibrant downtown on the brink of change. The Everett Mall opened in 1974, which eventually squeezed the vitality out of downtown. His work portrays a glimpse of businesses now long gone and shoppers bustling down sidewalks.
Perhaps most marvelous are the groovy fashions of the time: the butterfly-collared jackets, the mustachioed men, the spanking-new Volkswagen bugs.
House, now a 60-year-old retiree living in Puyallup, seems delighted to see his work join the library's collection of local historical goodies.
"I'm very pleased," House said. "I'd never thought in a million years that anyone would look at the photos again, much less digitize and catalog them."
In 1975, House was working at an audio-visual studio in Bellevue when he heard that Everett might be looking for a professional photographer. Scoring the job was, for House, the height of his professional photography career.
"I always dreamed about being a photographer," he said. "I loved taking pictures."
He paid for his own camera gear and developed photos in a make-shift dark room in a janitor's closet across the hall from the mayor's office in old City Hall.
While many of his assignments were far from exciting, House said he enjoyed learning about how the city worked and talking with often enthusiastic city workers. He remains amazed that anyone is excited to discuss the inner workings of water filtration.
After nearly three years on the job, grumbling about whether the City Could afford to pay for a staff photographer began to burble around City Hall. House heard them and decided he'd better find work elsewhere, eventually settling into a 28-year career with the state's surplus property division.
The city today does not have a staff photographer on the payroll.
House still takes photos for his own pleasure with his digital palm-sized Panasonic Lumix.
Reporter Debra Smith: 425-339-3197 or dsmith@heraldnet.com.
That '70s City
Find the Neil House photo collection of 1970s Everett online at www.epls.org/nw/digital.asp.
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