Looking East From Third and Main

Main Street and the businesses that line it form the heart of Edmonds.

The street was originally named George Street in honor of the founder of Edmonds, . Over the past century, the street has seen a succession of stores, shops and offices, and it has always remained vital to Edmonds' downtown.

These photos, all taken from the intersection of Third Avenue looking east, trace the growth of Edmonds' central business district over the past 100 years.

The first photo, taken in 1909 at the time of Seattle’s Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition, shows a street of mud lined with wooden sidewalks and storefronts. The photo brims with vitality and activity, reflecting the optimism and spirit of early 20th-century Edmonds.  Horse-drawn wagons share the street with pedestrians, who spill onto the roadway from the raised wooden sidewalks.

The wood-frame building on the right houses mayor Jim Brady’s law office. Brady served as mayor intermittently between 1901 and his death in 1912. In the left foreground is the , Edmonds’ first commercial building, that was home to William Kingdon’s general store. Constructed in 1890, the Schumacher building has housed a series of businesses over the years, and remains in active use today. (For more on the Schumacher Building, read the July 2010 issue of The Preservationist from the Edmonds Historic Preservation Commission.)

The second photo from 1938 shows Brady’s law office replaced by a café. The Schumacher Building is now home to . The Beeson Building (upper right) at the corner of Fourth and Main replaced several wooden structures destroyed by fire in 1909 shortly after the first photo was taken. Many years later, this photo inspired Edmonds artist Andy Eccelshall to create the limited edition poster, "4th and Main," that appears in the photo section of this article.

The third photo shows Main Street in 1990. The Schumacher Building is now the , with the Edmonds Variety Store just to the east. The wood-frame building that housed Brady's law practice is a series of new storefronts.

The final photo from today shows Chanterelle Restaurant continuing to occupy the Schumacher Building. Edmonds Variety is gone, replaced by the HouseWares store.

Much has changed over the 100 years represented by these photos. The images capture how Edmonds evolved from the lumbering town founded by George Brackett to the diverse community of today.