HistoryLink Tours

Backtrack a half block east to Summit Avenue, then turn south and walk under the Highway 2 trestle.

US Route 2 starts just three blocks west of here, and reaches Houlton, Maine in two segments. The most northern cross-country highway is interrupted at the Great Lakes, then reappears in New York state. Much of the route roughly parallels the Great Northern Railway that arrived in Everett in 1893. US 2 began as the Theodore Roosevelt International Highway from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon. Over the years there were many changes, and in 1946 the western end of the route changed from Portland to Everett.

Turn west on California Street and follow it around as it curves onto Highland Avenue and Hewitt Avenue. Continue on Hewitt for about two blocks.

3120 Hewitt Avenue – McCabe Building (1892): Architect Frederick Sexton. National Register. This National Register building cost $12,000. The U.S. Clothing Company moved in on October 20, 1892. Built for investors W. G. Swalwell and Melvin Swartout (whose homes were earlier on this tour), it sold to Pennsylvania businessman John McCabe for $19,000 shortly after it was built. Everett’s first July 4 was celebrated in a temporary pavilion on the foundation slab in 1892.

The building has held a variety of businesses, including U.S. Clothing Company, Maud Muckles Dressmaker, and Phelps and Son Undertakers in 1900, Castle bar in 1937, several taverns in the last part of the twentieth century, and as offices in the twenty-first century.

You can walk westbound on Hewitt Ave to your starting point. On your way, you’ll walk under Interstate 5, which split the Riverside neighborhood in two.