How Everett, Washington Got Its Name From an Investor's Son
Everett, Washington, is named for Everett Colby, the son of a New York investor who helped bankroll the city. Shortly before the new name came along, the same ground had been platted as Port Gardner.
Port Gardner first
On August 22, 1890, W. J. and B. J. Rucker platted a town on Puget Sound at the mouth of the Snohomish River and called it Port Gardner. Then bigger money showed up. Edmond Meany’s 1923 book on Washington place names says a group of capitalists “headed by Charles Colby of New York and Henry Hewitt, Jr., of Tacoma” bought land for a large commercial project, and “the city was enlarged and named in honor of Everett Colby, son of one of the promoters.”
Charles L. Colby wasn’t a small player. William Whitfield’s 1926 county history, quoting an earlier biography, calls him the principal owner of the Wisconsin Central Railroad and says he was working with John D. Rockefeller on a Chicago railroad terminal. He’d come out to Puget Sound looking for a place to build whaleback ships, and he’d nearly settled on Anacortes. Hewitt went along with him on a trip to Alaska to argue for Port Gardner instead.
A second helping of dessert
The Everett Public Library tells the story of the moment the name was picked, in a piece published by the local paper, The Daily Herald. As the library tells it, in 1890 the investors met for dinner at Charles Colby’s home in New York City. Hewitt, the group’s leader, noticed the host’s teenage son, Everett, asking for more dessert, and that’s the name they went with.
That’s a good story, and it comes from the city’s own library. Still, you should know that Meany and Whitfield, the two older histories, say only that the city was named for Colby’s son, without the dinner.
A map full of money
The investors didn’t stop with the city’s name. When the plat of Everett proper was filed on February 6, 1892, Whitfield says, “the principal streets were named in honor of the promoters of the enterprise.” The list includes Hoyt, Colby, Wetmore, Oakes and Rockefeller. So if you’re looking for the money behind early Everett, you can practically read it off the street map.
Sources & further reading
- Edmond S. Meany, Origin of Washington Geographic Names (1923), pp. 81–82. The Port Gardner plat of August 22, 1890; Colby and Hewitt; and the naming for Everett Colby.
- William Whitfield, History of Snohomish County, Volume I (1926). Charles L. Colby’s business ties and the Alaska trip (p. 313), and the 1892 plat that named the city “for Everett, son of C. L. Colby” and its streets for the promoters (p. 334).
- The Daily Herald, “How the City of Everett got its name.” The Everett Public Library’s account of the 1890 dinner and the dessert.
- GNIS feature 1512198 (U.S. Geological Survey). The federal record for Everett.
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