About Everest
Kirkland’s Everest Neighborhood spans from 68th Street to Central Way, and from 405 to the 5th place railroad tracks.
The Everest Neighborhood has officially been a part of the City of Kirkland since being annexed from King County in 1949, and has had a colorful and varied history. The core single-family homes clustered around Everest Park are evidence of a fairly recent evolution to a stable single-family zoned area. Everest Park has existed for close to 50 years, but in that time it has undergone several changes, and continue to evolve today.
Even before the neighborhood became part of the City of Kirkland, it served as the rail gateway to Kirkland. In the early part of the 20th century, goods and people primarily traveled over long distances either by ferry across the lake or by rail on the Northern Pacific line. Kirkland’s rail station was in the Everest Neighborhood, on Railroad Avenue, about 1/4 mile north of the Everest Park kiosk. The rail station of 1970 was torn down and replaced by a metal building that stood into the late 1970s. The foundation for this building can still be seen between the tracks and Railroad Avenue.
Everest Neighborhood is named after Everest Park which is the centerpiece of the neighborhood. Everest Park is named after Harold P. Everest, a former Mayor, Charter Member in 1937 of the Rotary Club of Kirkland, and civic leader of Kirkland. He was also a Chairman of the Journalism Department at the University of Washington and lived with his wife in an apartment up over the commercial buildings on the west side of Lake Street, north of the Anthony’s Homeport building.
One example of the changes in the neighborhood that occurred when Kirkland annexed this area was the change in street numbers and addresses. 8th St S. used to be 100th Ave NE. (Earlier it was Alexander Ave, after the original name of the plat, Alexander Acres.) This type of street number system persists south of Everest in Houghton, and west of I-405, on Rose Hill.
Vestiges of an old right-of-way, probably for rail, can be seen in the embankment in the woods directly to the east. This may have been an old logging railroad built across the wet areas in the woods.
In the 1940s, Everest Park was the site of a housing project, called Project A and built to house workers at the Lake Washington Shipyards, where Carillon Point is today. Following World War II, workers left the area as shipyard work disappeared; the housing project was torn down following the war when the residents left. It is believed that a few of the structures were moved to various locations as single-family dwellings. Until the 1990s redevelopment of the park, remnants of sidewalks from the wartime housing could be seen in areas of the park. Pieces of foundation can be seen in various areas of the park, including near the new Picnic Pavilion.
For the first 30-40 years of the past century, Kirkland supplied fresh produce, dairy products, and eggs to Seattle. Kirkland’s Orthopedic Hospital Guild paid their dues at least partly in eggs. The cul-de-sac at 8th Ave S. and the area with houses on the north side of 9th Ave A. was part of an orchard (cherries, pears, maybe apples) attached to 800 9th Ave S. until the late 1970s. Most of the cul-de-sac at 6th Pl S was a corral attached to the house now remodeled and located at 904 6th Pl S. but originally facing 8th St S. Well into the 1980s this corral usually held two young steers being raised for meat. (Once in the 1970s, at least one of the steers escaped as it was being transferred from a truck to the corral and off down 8th St S.) There was a large chicken house behind 341 8th St S into the 1950s. (The house was located behind 329 8th St S and accessible from 6th St S. was once a chicken house.) The original house at 615 8th St S. (now part of the house across the street from the Everest Park kiosk) had a corral into the 1980s that extended to the south where 619 8th St S is now.
In the 1960s and again in the mid 1970s, attempts were made to expand industrial activity and then apartment buildings respectively into the area around the park. Only intense efforts by residents preserved this area’s single-family dwelling character.
While the Everest area was not officially part of Kirkland until 1949, certain the early residents looked to Kirkland as the nearest place to buy supplies and to go to for enforcement. Kirkland was the largest community on the east side for many years, probably into the 1960s. Kirkland was started as a steel town by Peter Kirk in the 1880s and incorporate in 1905. Bellevue was not incorporated until 1953. The manager of the Gateway Theater in downtown Kirkland, Mel Sohns, lived at 341 8th St S. for a number of years. The Gateway Theater building still stands, on the north side of Central Way, just west of the intersection with Lake St., across from the Triple J.
Articles in the Eastside Journal of the day supply information about the acquisition and development of the Everest Park land by the city.
In 2000, the Everest and the Houghton Neighborhoods received the first $25,000 Neighborhood Connection Grants from the City. Everest voted to use its Grant to build the picnic shelter near the children’s play area.
Kirkland Rotary, as its Centennail Year Project, was the driving force and primary contributor in constructing the new Picnic Pavilion at the north end of the park. The Everest Neighborhood voted to put $22,000 of its 2005 $25,000 Neighborhood Connection Grant into this project. Other major contributors include Starbucks Coffee Co., with a $10K Parks Grant to the Everest Neighborhood Association (ENA), the City of Kirkland, with landscaping and site preparation work, and the Rotary Foundation. In addition, much of the landscaping work was done by Kirkland Rotary and Everest Neighborhood volunteers.
Undoubtedly, the Everest Neighborhood will continue to evolve, just as it has for the past 95 years. You can help to ensure that it evolves in ways that we all can be comfortable with by becoming informed and involved. Come to Everest Neighborhood Association meetings, and stay informed about Kirkland politics and land-use and other decisions that may affect your quality of life. Meet your neighbors at the ENA meetings and at the annual picnic held every summer in Everest Park.
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