In Days Gone By: The effects of World War II on the United States and Edmonds (1946-1956)

On Sept 2, 2023, as I was researching this article, I realized it was the 78th anniversary of V-J Day (Victory over Japan Day). On Sept. 2, 1945, dignitaries from Japan arrived upon the veranda deck of the USS Missouri, where they met the officials of the Allied Powers. The dignitaries representing the Emperor of Japan formally signed surrender documents ending World War II.

V-J Day marked the end of the gruesome and exhausting Second World War. World War II, according to many historians, was the most significant event in the 20th century. The cost of the devastation is incalculable, and it is estimated that between 70 million and 85 million military personnel and civilians lost their lives during the war. That presented above 3% of the Earth’s population at that time. With the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945, we were also propelled into the nuclear age.

Author’s note:  Four years later, on Sept. 23, 1949, the Soviets exploded their own atomic bomb. The realization that we weren’t the only country to have an atomic bomb created a sense of foreboding that has carried on until today.

1946-1956: Euphoria and concerns abound

With the end of the war, the United States’ attitude was one of “can do,” and Americans sang “Don’t Fence Me In.” Of course, not everyone could “ride to the ridge where the West commences,” as one of the stanzas of the song suggested. But the war had changed the American landscape in many ways, including knocking down numerous barriers that existed before the war.

With the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, America came together in a way never seen before. But the way that Americans had previously worked, played and raised families would be drastically changed after the war.

The war brought significant changes to the Pacific Northwest. New job opportunities in aircraft manufacturing, atomic energy research, transportation and aluminum production — to name a few — were added to well-established jobs in the lumber, fishing and agricultural industries.

Despite the euphoria associated with the war’s end, many were concerned that the U.S. would fall back into a 1930s-style Depression with high unemployment as it did after WWI. But the opposite proved to be true. U.S. consumer demand for cars, radios, refrigerators, household appliances and goods of all kinds swept the country into a booming economy.

During WWII, factories had been converted to manufacture war-related items. With the end of the war, factories were re-converted to build peace-time items and consumer demand was high. Citizens had had only a few items to purchase during the war, and had purchased war bonds instead. With their savings, consumers flocked to stores looking for the newest and best products. By the end of 1947, factories were pushing products out the door as fast as they could, and the United States was experiencing almost full employment.

In Edmonds, companies like Pointer Willamette, which had manufactured landing barges for the Army during World War II, had converted its operations to manufacture trucks and trailers. Similar to thousands of other companies, Pointer Willamette increased the number of employees, offered higher wages and provided the basis for upward mobility that hadn’t existed prior to the war.

By 1948, the Safeway store — which had been the only grocery in downtown Edmonds during the war — had been joined by large grocery chains like IGA and Tradewell. Several “mom and pop” grocery stores had also popped up on the fringes of town, providing consumers with a multitude of choices as to where they could shop.

At the end of 1950, the Edmonds Post Office had to move from its location in the Schneider Building –where it had been for 25 years — to a larger space on Main Street to handle the increase in daily mail and to support multiple new rural mail routes that had been added since the war’s end.

By 1951, retail stores that carried appliances and radios started to dot the landscape both in downtown Edmonds and in malls like Northgate, which opened in 1950.

To meet pent-up demand, Edmonds also had two car dealerships in the downtown business area by the early 1950s. The Yost garage and Ford dealership was located at 5th and Dayton, and the newly expanded Hopper Chevrolet dealership was located between 2nd and 3rd on Main Street.

Despite the huge consumer demand and almost full employment, the workplace gains that had been made by women and minorities during the war’s industrial production period was severely challenged.  During the war, “Rosie the Riveter” had been the most publicized role model of women entering the workplace. But women had entered almost every form of business during the war, including politics.  Many of the women who had proven their worth fought to remain in the workplace, albeit at lesser pay rates than their male counterparts. This was true across the nation. In Edmonds, there were more women working outside the home than ever before. Nationally the progress was slow at first, but this acceptance led to modern-day feminism that continued to expand over the following decades.

Author’s note: One of the side effects of women becoming primary household providers, when combined with the long separation of some husbands and wives during the war, was a large increase in post-war divorces. According to national statistics, in 1940 — the year before the attack on Pearl Harbor — the divorce rate was just below 2 per 1,000 marriages. In 1946, the first year after the war, the divorce rate had climbed to just under 4 per 1,000 marriages, and it continued to climb for the next five years.  In Snohomish County after WWII, the divorce rates mirrored those of the nation, nearly doubling in number.

Fortunately, one of the smartest things that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the federal government did toward the end of the war was to implement the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, more commonly known as the G.I.’s Bill of Rights. It provided veterans with services that included low-cost loans for housing and entrance into institutions of higher learning.

With the G.I. Bill, returning veterans who were hard pressed for money could acquire affordable housing and also in many cases get a much-needed education. Between 1945 and 1949 alone, over one-and-a- quarter-million veterans enrolled in colleges and universities. Some estimates state that nearly seven million World War II veterans took advantage of the GI Bill to further their education after the war.

With access to affordable housing, young returning veterans married. They — along with their already married peers — started to raise families. Between 1946 and 1956, nearly 55 million Baby Boomers were born.

In the Edmonds area, homes built by individual homeowners and developer-built large subdivisions of cinder block houses started to appear above the Edmonds Bowl, reaching all the way to Highway 99 and also dotting the landscape to the north and south.

A variety of small homes for first-time buyers were heavily advertised in the Edmonds Tribune-Review by manufacturers, planning bureaus and property developers.

In addition to the ads for individual home buyers, developers were building and advertising multiple residence subdivisions all around Edmonds. Rainbow Park, built in the early 1950s and located northeast of “Five Corners,” was typical of the development. The subdivision was comprised of approximately 40 to 50 new homes. A three-bedroom home, with a full basement and back yard, was priced at around $18,500, and ideal for growing families.

With this rapid growth, and multiple annexations by the city, Edmonds nearly doubled its population by the end of 1956. A March 22, 1957 story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer was titled “Edmonds ‘Bursting At Its Seams.” The article detailed that the rapid growth was expected to continue, and that the city would have to find ways to manage the density and growth, as it expanded farther and farther away from the city’s center.

With the city’s geographical expansion and its population explosion, the euphoria was tempered by obvious problems. Roads and streets needed massive improvement to accommodate the increased number of vehicles.

Edmonds residents, who as elementary students caught school buses near University Colony in the mid-1950s, recalled having to walk up muddy roads to their bus stops on Snake Road, and then travel over bumpy pothole-filled roads in cold rickety buses to the center of town to attend Edmonds Elementary School.

Beyond the city’s infrastructure issues, the sheer number of young school-age children within the school district’s expanding boundaries created huge problems for the city and the district. By 1951, Edmonds Elementary School was overflowing, and additional classrooms and teachers were needed. Over the next two years, extra teachers were hired and schedules were adjusted to meet the short-term needs. But it was obvious that new elementary schools were going to be required to meet the needs of students living further away from the downtown Edmonds elementary school. To give the school district some credit, by 1953 Martha Lake Elementary had opened and others were being planned or under construction.

Author’s note: In talking with people who were bused to Edmonds Elementary School in the early 1950s, they recounted being referred to “as one of the kids that live up on the hill, or out in the sticks.” Apparently there was an undertone that children living outside of the Bowl were from the proverbial “wrong side of the tracks” and were made to feel unwanted or inferior in ways. The increased population- density issue appears to have also been prevalent 70 years ago.

By the end of 1956,  despite the economic boom and the general sentiment “that my kids are going to have it better than I did,” there were additional major challenges ahead for the city.

During the post-World War II boom period, the Edmonds’ city management had chosen to move away from an industrial waterfront to one that was more recreationally appealing and focused. The belief was that the town needed to have a waterfront that would attract young families and visitors to the area. By 1961, all of the main industrial companies — including Willamette Pointe — were gone. Along with those companies, other businesses in the downtown core left or did not survive. This reality — combined with new shopping alternatives in Lynnwood, Aurora Village and James Village — resulted in downtown Edmonds becoming less appealing, causing a downward spiral in the early 1960s.

You can learn more about the history of downtown Edmonds through the 1960s and beyond in our previous article here.

Learn how Edmonds reacted after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and how life changed over the following year, in this previous article.

This article was researched and written by Byron Wilkes. Thanks go out to Steven Laird Pennington, Gary Nelson, Gale Andre, Greg Bergere, he Edmonds Historical Society and the Sno Isle Genealogical Society plus the Seattle Post Intelligencer’s archives for their assistance in researching this article.