Saturday, September 12, 2026
10 a.m. – 3 p.m.
$30.00 per person, Click the image below to purchase tickets.
Category Archives: Historic Sites Tour
FAQ – Odd Fellows Halls
We often are asked who were the Odd Fellows? and why did they own a hall?
Our Floyd Norgaard Cultural Center was built in 1902 as a fraternal hall of local Stanwood businessmen known as the Stanwood Fraternal Association. They quickly sold the building to Anton Anderson who eventually sold the hall to the newly formed Stanwood Odd Fellows #249 in 1909. They used it for community music, meetings, events, performances and other events until the 1930s when it was sold to be a storage building for the local Bryant Hardware. In 2000, the Stanwood Area Historical Society purchased and named it after our major donor, Floyd Norgaard, a local resident who wanted to see it saved.
Scroll down to check out a random list of Odd Fellows Halls throughout the country and some contemporary organizations websites to learn more about their history and how widespread they once were. Note the amazing variety! Many are on the Historic Register, local and National.
Please also search on your own for your own home town, many of the buildings exist throughout the country.
Demise of the old Railroad depot
Painting from a recent gift to SAHS. 2023.07
The Stanwood railroad depot was built in about 1891 when the Great Northern Railroad was connected the Puget Sound with the midwestern section of the United States.
The painting on the right captures the details of the siding. The initials of the painter are not familiar but was certainly done before 1973 when the depot was finally destroyed after the last passenger run in 1971 when Amtrak (National Railroad Passenger Corporation) took over the run. Amtrak regulations at that time did not allow service to any point outside of the United States.
Last train carrying passengers from Stanwood depot was April 30, 1971. Photo by Howard Hansen of the Stanwood News
The depot was demolished two years later in April 1973. The Stanwood Station now provides passenger service using Amtrak and connect with Vancouver B. C. and the Empire Builder from Everett.
Visit the Eldridge Center (formerly called the Stanwood Camano museum) to see more photographs and maps of the community.
The Stanwood Hotel
The Stanwood Hotel, one of our oldest buildings and still serves beer, food and occasionally has had music. The original building Hotel was built shortly after the 1892 fire that destroyed most of the buildings in Stanwood at the time. The Hotel has witnessed floods and many changes since that time. It was originally a gathering place for businessmen, loggers, millworkers, hunters and the occasional tourist.
It’s first owners named it the “Hotel Cottage Home” according to Allan Anderson. It usually had a restaurant that served meals. Advertising in the Stanwood Tidings lists I. F Galloupe, Proprietor, First Class Accommodation, Special Attention paid to Travelers. 1904-06 it was operated by Mr. and Mrs. Ira Galloupe (Stanwood Story, v. 2 p. 88.). According to the Oregon & Washington Gazetteer and Business Directory, 1907 – 1908 the Hotel Stanwood ‘s proprietor was a Mrs. M Helen Shadbolt.
In 1909 the Polk’s Directory of Everett and Snohomish County Washington the Hotel Stanwood listing advertises the
“Bartz & Hansen Proprs (sic), opposite Post Office (when it was on Market St.),
American & European Plan Electric Lights Modern conveniences. The Hotel has been enlarged to 33 rooms and newly furnished. We can Please the Traveling Public. Rates Reasonable Meals at all hours Stanwood Wash.”
Allan Bartz owned it until 1911 when he moved to East Stanwood and built the Bartz Hotel near the depot. A next owner or proprietor was Mrs. M. B. Miller & Co. in 1916 followed by a succession of owners, proprietors, managers.
Before 1922 it was on the Pacific Highway until the highway was re-routed more directly past East Stanwood north to Skagit County along the railroad. The Stanwood Hotel was bypassed. The next owners we know of were George Bellow and Chris Papps.
In 1933 when prohibition was repealed Clyde Phillips put in a bar and ownership was made out to Sverre Landre and partner Albert Moe. [Moe sold his interest and bought the Central Tavern on the opposite corner. Which he ran for about eight years. Moe became Mayor in 1949 and a long time volunteer fireman.
When the elegant Palace (later Graham) hotel was taken down, the back bar was sold to the owners of the Stanwood Hotel. The old mahogany wood spans across the top of a a great wide mirror, supported by hollow shafts in the manner of the Roman Corinthian columns.
They sold at some point to Sverre Landre followed by Thomas and Irene Craig in 1955. It was around this time a new foundation was put under the building. The outside was covered with 8,500 feet of cedar, half vertical and half horizontal and 75 gallons of stain. In 1961 the Craigs sold it to Mr. and Mrs. S. N Benjamin from Seattle and many owners and proprietors succeeded them. In 2012 it was reported in the Everett Herald “Old Hotel restored to Glory” was to be purchased and remodeled by Marilyn and Leonard Guthrie.
More information and photos about the hotel are in the ramp display of the Eldridge Center.
Stanwood City Hall
Click to enlarge.
The news-clipping reproduction on the left shows a photograph of the original Stanwood Town Hall built in 1904 soon after Stanwood incorporated in 1903. It faced the same direction (north) as the front entrance on Irvine (270th) as the current City Hall.
At the time, there was no S. R. 532. It had three houses behind it and the large Stanwood Lumber Co to the southwest. .
According to the 1910 Anderson Plat book of Snohomish County, there was a jail behind this building and it was labeled “Court Room and Jail”.
It was located at the corner of Oliver (102nd Dr) and Irvine Street (270th St NW)
Oliver was the first homesteader here whose land became Stanwood. Irvine owned the Thompson House before S. A. Thompson and had a ranch just east of the Oliver land.
The “new/current” Stanwood City Hall building was completed in 1936 and was a special project of 5-term Mayor Charles Dockendorf. It was partially funded by the Work Progress Administration (WPA). In 1944 it was paid off “with virtually no extra cost to the taxpayers, representing an investment of about $20,000.” (Twin City News, Jan 6, 1944)
Stanwood City Hall, 2012; In 2012 Stanwood made many interior and exterior improvements with assistance and planning by Dave Eldridge, Rebecca Lind, Pearl Schaar, and Mayor Dianne White. Contractors included Tom Regney of Snohomish and Pioneer Masonry of Seattle repairing and sealing cracks in the stucco and repainting.
Taftezon Memorial
In 1939 the Crown Prince Olav and Queen Marthe visited the United States. They stopped in Stanwood to place a wreath at the memorial for their Norwegian emigrant who came to the United States.
Taftezon Memorial and Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church Cemetery, Snohomish County – 1849
Zacharias Martin Taftezon and his family came from Trondelag, Troms and Finnmark area of northern Norway. After learning the shoemaking trade in Germany and returning to Norway to find life not to his liking, he traveled via England to New Orleans and then on to the Pacific Coast in search of a better life. He sailed up to Whidbey Island and landed in what is now Oak Harbor with two other men in December 1849 or January 1850. It was paradise to him. He adapted well to life here and was a friend to many. He liked it so well that many in his family came to join him.
For more information on his amazing journey,
see the Historylink.org article
and check out the other stories and sites on the 2020 Stanwood Camano Historic Sites Tour.
The Memorial is not officially on the tour, but it is place to go if you are interested.
There is also a walking tour in Oak Harbor waterfront that includes a little of his history there.