Making The Grade In Downtown Edmonds

The first decade of the 20th century saw increased activity on Edmonds’ downtown streets. Despite heroic efforts to divert runoff with ditches and culvert, rainy weather inevitably turned Edmonds thoroughfares into quagmires. 

While horses and horse-drawn vehicles were somewhat immune to becoming mired in the mud, automobiles were another story. As autos replaced horses as the primary mode of transportation, roads in the region were improved to accommodate them.

In 1912, King County completed the North Trunk Road, a modern brick-paved wonder running from Seattle to the Snohomish County line. It took until 1915 to begin work on the North Trunk Cutoff, which extended the paved road into Edmonds. But once in Edmonds, travelers were again faced with dirt and mud.

This resulted in a major effort at grading and paving the downtown streets. Initially this comprised laying puncheon and planking on the most-used streets, and constructing wooden sidewalks for pedestrians. The first photo of Main Street circa 1909 shows pedestrians enjoying the luxury of a sidewalk, while street traffic still contended with mud and mire.

Further improvements were on the way, and the late nineteen-teens saw a bustle of activity grading, smoothing and eventually paving the downtown streets. This was first accomplished by pick and shovel work, shown in the early photo of Third Avenue South. Later mechanized graders joined in the work.

By the 1920s, most of downtown Edmonds’ major streets were paved. As population grew and spread into outlying communities, paving slowly followed, with some areas remaining unpaved until well after World War II.