Marysville Opera House: Concrete Pioneer of Snohomish County
Washington
The low brick-and-concrete building in downtown Marysville is deceptively modest for what it represents. In eighteen ninety-eight the local Oddfellows lodge built a wooden meetinghouse here, which burned in nineteen ten. Rather than rebuild in timber, the community decided to try something new.
Contractor A. E. Heider used poured concrete, making the replacement the second known structure in Snohomish County built that way, at a cost of twenty thousand dollars.
The cornerstone was laid on March twenty-sixth and the hall finished by August of nineteen eleven. For decades it served as the social center of Marysville, hosting performances, rallies, and civic meetings. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in nineteen eighty-two.
After years of neglect, a renovation reopened it in March of two thousand one.
