Lake's beauty is about only thing that hasn't changed here

By RUTH SCHUBERT
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

The character of Lake Stevens has long been reflected in the glacial lake, the largest in Snohomish County and the city's namesake.

In the early 1900s, the lake's biggest cove served as a holding pond for timber headed for the mills. Everett Mayor J.A. Falconer put up a mill in 1896. Ten years later, the Rucker brothers built the largest shingle mill and sawmill, on what would become city land. The operation drew enough workers to support a store, pharmacy, doctor's office and bank.

Rucker's Mill was dismantled after it burned in both 1919 and 1925. With the mill gone, Lake Stevens became a summer home and bedroom community, with residents commuting to Everett and beyond.

People flocked to waterfront beaches and the dance pavilion at Williams Park on the northeast section of the lake. By the 1950s, water-skiing was all the rage.

When Anne and Gayle Whitsell moved to Lake Stevens in 1953, the city was still seven years from incorporation. The couple drove in from Bellingham because Gayle had a one-year job at Lake Stevens High School.

"We arrived here and we absolutely fell in love with this place, the people and the school district," says Anne Whitsell, 70. "When we moved here in 1953, most of the people were old Everett people who had summer homes on Lake Stevens."

Three years later, the family bought a three-acre, lakefront lot for $2,800 and started building a home. The couple quickly became anchors of the community.

Gayle, who died last year, taught industrial arts, consumer math, electricity and traffic safety and coached the baseball and basketball teams. In 1960, the city of Lake Stevens was incorporated, and Gayle served as mayor from 1961 to 1967.

The couple helped build the first public library in Lake Stevens, established the local historical society and museum, and spearheaded the 1995 discovery of a rumored locomotive buried at the bottom of the lake.

The museum, which opened in 1989, houses more than 900 photographs and artifacts: fixtures from Mitchell's Pharmacy, including a soda fountain that served as a social center; water-ski memorabilia; a desk and fixtures from the old schoolhouse; tools from the timber trade.

The couple raised four children in Lake Stevens, including Cindy Whitsell-Fraser. Now 45, Whitsell-Fraser moved back to the area 12 years ago and built a home on the back end of her parents' lot. Whitsell-Fraser lives there with her husband, Mac, daughter Erin, 12, and son Riley, 6.

"When we came back, we thought it had changed so much then that it bothered us," says Whitsell-Fraser, library/media specialist for Lake Stevens Middle School. "A lot of people are mad about the fast growth."

Still, she sees beauty in her hometown.

"At night it's still real quiet. And the beauty of the lake -- that's not going to change."