Edmonds

It's an Edmonds Kind of Day

Edmonds feels like a small seaside town that somehow found itself on the edge of a major metropolitan area. Just north of Seattle, its compact downtown sits above Puget Sound, with streets sloping toward the waterfront, ferries crossing to the Olympic Peninsula and the Olympic Mountains rising across the water.

But Edmonds began as a very different kind of waterfront town.

The area is part of the traditional lands of the Snohomish people, whose relationship with the waters and lands around Puget Sound stretches back thousands of years. European-American settlement came much later. In 1876, George Brackett established a homestead and logging operation here, helping create the community that would become Edmonds.

Timber quickly defined the young town. Logging and shingle production dominated the local economy during the late nineteenth century, while mills lined portions of the waterfront. When the Great Northern Railway arrived in 1891, Edmonds gained another important connection to Seattle and the rapidly developing communities around Puget Sound. For decades, the shoreline was a working landscape of mills, trains, docks and boats rather than the recreational waterfront visitors see today.

As the timber industry declined and the Seattle metropolitan area expanded after World War II, Edmonds gradually changed with it. The mills disappeared, the waterfront became increasingly recreational, and the old commercial center evolved into the walkable downtown that exists today. Yet the basic geography of the original town remains surprisingly easy to recognize. The historic townsite is still largely occupied by downtown and the surrounding residential streets.

That makes Edmonds particularly enjoyable on foot.

Start around the shops, cafés and restaurants near Fifth and Main, where the downtown fountain acts as a natural crossroads. From there, it's an easy wander through a district of older storefronts, galleries and public art before heading downhill toward Puget Sound. Edmonds was designated Washington's first Certified Creative District, fitting for a town where art has become part of the streetscape rather than something confined to a museum.

Then the character changes again as you reach the water. Beaches and waterfront parks occupy land once associated with the town's industrial past. At Brackett's Landing, just north of the ferry terminal, a marine sanctuary and underwater dive park protect an environment that citizens began working to restore decades ago. The transformation is remarkable: a waterfront once dominated by mills and industry has become one of the community's defining public spaces.

For Urban Wine Walkers, Edmonds works because all these pieces remain close together. You can begin with coffee downtown, wander the streets and galleries, stop for a flight of wine, then walk toward the waterfront as the afternoon begins to fade. Ferries come and go, trains pass along the shoreline, and on a clear day the Olympic Mountains stretch across the horizon.

And yes, the rumors are true - one of the Urban Wine Walkers grew up right here in Edmonds!