Everett To Restore Historic Totem Pole -- Former Tulalip Tribal Chief Was The Artist

EVERETT - A deteriorated, 73-year-old totem pole carved by former Tulalip Tribes Chief William Shelton will be removed from its site in front of the Totem Family Dining restaurant for study and eventual restoration.

The Everett City Council voted yesterday to spend $12,000 to move Shelton's "story pole" and hire a consultant. Although the city owns the pole, the Tulalip Tribes are involved in discussions about its fate.

The pole was erected in 1923 at Wetmore Avenue and California Street by a nonprofit fraternal organization called the Redmen Lodge.

In 1929 the lodge gave the pole to the city, which moved it to its current location on a triangular spit of parkland at Rucker Avenue and 44th Street Southeast. In those days, that marked Everett's "front door."

The nearby restaurant bearing its name wasn't built until 1946.

"It's the most significant Native American artifact the public has access to in Everett," said historian David Dilgard. "It's an authentic creation of a fellow who was a one-man cultural revival during the 1920s and 1930s."

Totem poles aren't part of the Puget Sound tribal tradition, but Shelton used them as "story poles" to preserve and illustrate traditional stories told by his people, Dilgard said.

"Shelton was trying to make vivid the moral stories told to him as a child," he said. "They are real; these are stories that if you check them are the larger stories you hear over and over again in the Lushootseed culture."

Lushootseed is the language once spoken by tribes from Bellingham to Olympia.

Shelton was born on Whidbey Island. At age 18 he moved to the mainland to learn to read and write at the Tulalip Mission School. There he was given his English name, and he grew to be an intermediary and interpreter between the white and native cultures.

He also was an artist, carver and writer. His poles stand in many cities in the Puget Sound area, and he published a book of legends that has been used by teachers in the Marysville School District.