The backside of this month’s historic photograph is as empty as First Street is in this important image, so we know nothing about the two children posing for the camera. Fortunately most of the historic images in the Snohomish Historical Society’s collection have notes on the reverse explaining who is in the photograph, perhaps where it was taken and if we are really lucky, the date.

The building on the left is the Cathcart Building, currently home to Black Cat Antiques, and it was built in 1910, so that’s a clue as to when the photograph was taken. The children seem to be standing in the middle of the intersection of D Avenue, as it was labeled then, and First Street. Their covered hands and the long shadows describe a bright winter afternoon. Over the boy’s left shoulder, the second building from the right that is catching the light is the first First National Bank building, the first bank in the county built in 1888, and it ended the year with a little over $105,000 in assets. It was the first brick building as well, and two doors down is the second, the Wilbur Drug building, built a few years later, another floor taller, and still standing as a lonely outpost to the past pictured here.

It’s worth getting out your magnifier to check out the details of the buildings as you work your way east. The Lysons Hardware store marks the intersection of Avenue C. The store burned in the fire of May 1911 that began two doors down in the basement of the Palace Restaurant. Because all of the buildings on the south side of First, between Avenues B and C, were built on wooden posts, the fire exploded, jumping across the street and engulfing the handsome four-star Penobscot Hotel. A side view of its detailed cornice can be picked out on the left; it’s the tallest one directly across the street.

At the far horizon, standing in the sun, is the brand new Carnegie Library built in 1910. The true gift of this picture is the visual understanding it brings as to how much of an achievement it was for our modest town to be awarded a grant from the Carnegie Foundation.

The Cosmopolitan Women’s Club had been raising funds for a new library since the early 1900s, but had to solicited the help of E. C. Ferguson because the Carnegie office evidently did not talk about money with women. And Ferguson had to reach across the political aisle to ask a former Snohomish lawyer, then U. S. Senator Sam Piles for his help. Senator Piles wrote Ferguson on January 20, 1909, “From the tone of Mr. Bertram’s letters (Andrew Carnegie’s secretary), you can see that there is no hope at present of getting aid from Mr. Carnegie.”

Then, mysteriously, we find a letter dated June 24, 1909, six months later, from the Seattle architectural firm Bigger and Warner, designers of our Carnegie building, stating that they are enclosing two sets of plans! The story of what happened during those six months is lost to history; but evidently, the women persevered and applied again – for the children.