MY EDMONDS NEWS Posted: July 22, 2021
Old Edmonds Opera house as photographed by Roger Barnstead.
The old Edmonds Opera House, later a skating rink, now home to the Edmonds Masonic Lodge, stands majestically in the center of the block of Dayton Street between 5th and 6th Avenues. The building serves as a symbol of the town’s history and of its present-day significance.
Edmonds residents and current Masonic Lodge members Roger Barnstead and Steve Pennington have expressed a great love of the building and of its history.
“The building and its members are a ‘Who’s Who’ of Edmonds history,” says Pennington. “George Brackett, several members of the Yost family, Ray V. Cloud, former mayors, business leaders, decorated military members, and a host of interesting characters.”
MY EDMONDS NEWS Posted: June 15, 2021 72
An advertisement announcing the opening of the Ritz Rink in Edmonds. (All images from the Edmonds Tribune-Review)
When the little village of Edmonds incorporated as a fourth-class town in August of 1890, even though there had been some hard times, the residents must have been filled with hope that the final decade of the 19th century would bring prosperity, growth and some needed culture to their community.
Certainly, at 5 o’clock in the evening on June 17, 1891, when the Great Northern track-laying engine rounded Point Edwards and came into view, the residents of Edmonds must have realized they were going to have a long-anticipated railroad connection to the outside world. Surely, it would help lead the way to prosperity.