A logging and farm town yields to people and technology

By DEBERA CARLTON HARRELL
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Before the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks were finished in 1917, dramatically lowering Lake Washington, Bothell was a mill town and a popular steamboat stop along the Sammamish River.

Logs were felled in heavy forests north of town, then floated into a North Creek flume toward shingle mills on the river, or rowed via Lake Washington log booms to Seattle and Ballard.

A flat, fertile valley framed by the Cascade Mountains yielded corn and other crops. Dairy farmers, cattle ranchers and others tended the land or country estates. Hay, coal, eggs, butter, oats and potatoes were among the earliest cargoes from Bothell along the "slough" that stretched from Issaquah and Lake Sammamish west to Lake Washington.

Today, it's people, not timber or crops, that are moving in and around this growing city. With a welcoming sign that encourages visitors to "Stay for a day or a lifetime," Bothell has gone from log boom to technology boom. Yet in many ways it remains rural at heart.

Many city officials, merchants and residents say they want to enhance Bothell as a regional nexus for recreation, transportation and high-tech industry without destroying the small-town atmosphere that citizens prize.

It has taken less than 30 years to transform Bothell's landscape, and for its population to grow from 3,000 to about 26,000. A major freeway cloverleaf -- Interstate 405 and state Route 522 -- replaced clover in the late 1960s. Cornfields and dairy farms have yielded to a technology corridor and business parks.

A University of Washington branch campus is being built where purebred Hereford cattle once grazed.

In 1992, the King County city of Bothell annexed a willing part of south Snohomish County (from 244th Street north to Filbert and Maltby roads), making it one of the biggest cities in the state to overlap two counties. The annexation pulled in 11,400 people, nearly doubling Bothell's population.

Different jurisdictions, laws, plans, issues and sentiments -- rural vs. urban, for example -- have made "balance" a city government buzzword. Citizens and land are split 50-50 between the two counties.

Changes have made Bothell a city with connections -- and increasing regional clout, city officials say. Major freeways intersect at Bothell, making it an important transportation hub now and as a future rapid transit stop. Bothell's Northshore School District is highly respected, and as host to high-tech employers and to the UW campus, the city role in technological and educational issues is assured.

Continued:

• Careful planning eases growing pains
• Adapting to changing times
• Sleepy downtown endures and endears, at least for now
• Hometown sentiment prevails over glass towers