The citizens of Everett voted their port into existence on July 13, 1918, chasing a dream that was already dying. World War I had created a maritime boom, and the city wanted a naval shipyard to capture it. The war ended a few months later, the shipyard never came, and the brand-new Port of Everett had to figure out what it actually was. More than a century later, that improvisation has become the port's defining trait -- a waterfront that has reinvented itself with each era, from lumber yards to warship berths to craft cocktail bars, and is still not finished becoming whatever comes next.
With no naval shipyard forthcoming, the port pivoted to lumber in the 1920s, riding the industry that had built Everett in the first place. Timber moved through the docks in enormous quantities, feeding construction across the Pacific Northwest. Then came another war. The Everett-Pacific Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company opened in 1942 and spent seven years building vessels for the national war effort before closing in 1949 -- a pattern the port knew well by then. Wartime booms brought purpose; peacetime brought reinvention. The most consequential shift came in 1987, when the port sold 110 acres to the U.S. Navy. Naval Station Everett officially commissioned in 1994, anchoring a permanent military presence on Possession Sound and giving the waterfront a steady tenant that outlasted any lumber contract.
Ask most people to name the largest public marina on the West Coast of the United States, and they will guess San Diego, or San Francisco, or maybe Puget Sound's better-known ports in Seattle or Tacoma. They will not guess Everett. But with over 2,300 slips stretching along Port Gardner Bay, the Port of Everett holds that title. The marina hums with activity in every season: summer brings the Waterfront Concert Series and the Fresh Paint Festival of Artists, September draws anglers to the Everett Coho Derby, and year-round the Everett Yacht Club -- founded in 1907 -- keeps its century-old traditions alive. A free ferry runs from the 10th Street boat launch to Jetty Island, an artificial island built in 1895 to smooth the navigation channel for commercial ships, now repurposed as a sandy beach for families.
For eight years, a quiet tenant occupied space at the port's waterfront. OceanGate, a private submersible manufacturer, moved to Everett in 2015 and built deep-sea vessels in relative obscurity. The company's work drew little attention from neighbors or media -- until June 2023, when its submersible Titan imploded during a dive to the Titanic wreck, killing all five people aboard. The tragedy thrust the port's unassuming industrial waterfront into international headlines. OceanGate's Everett offices closed indefinitely. The episode was a stark reminder that behind the marina's pleasure boats and restaurant patios, the port remains a working waterfront where serious, sometimes dangerous, maritime enterprise takes place.
Since the 2010s, the Port of Everett has been converting 65 acres of its waterfront into something the city has never had: a mixed-use neighborhood at the water's edge. The first phase, Waterfront Place, opened a 142-room hotel in late 2019, followed by 249 apartments in 2021 and a restaurant row in 2023. It was the first time anyone had lived at the port -- residential apartments were simply not part of the picture before. The second phase, the Millwright District, is bringing 200 housing units, 40,000 square feet of retail, and new roads. From above, the transformation is visible: cranes and construction staging on one side, the orderly rows of the marina on the other, and the gray hulls of Navy ships at anchor in between. The port that was born from a failed dream is still building.
Located at 47.98N, 122.22W on Possession Sound. The marina's 2,300 slips are clearly visible as dense parallel rows extending into Port Gardner Bay. Naval Station Everett's military vessels are identifiable to the south. Paine Field (KPAE) is approximately 3 miles south-southeast. Best viewed at 3,000-5,000 feet for the full waterfront layout. The Hewitt Avenue Trestle crosses the Snohomish River floodplain to the east.