Startup, WA

Startup is a Snohomish County community at the meeting of the Wallace and Skykomish rivers, with a name that came from a mail problem. William Wait platted the town as Wallace in 1890, but mail was often sent to Wallace, Idaho, so the name changed to Startup in 1901 for local merchant and sawmill manager George Startup. Logging shaped the early town, while farming and later homes filled in the valley. US 2 carries traffic through the community, and the river junction keeps the place tied to the wider Skykomish corridor. Startup is a river-and-road settlement whose unusual name preserves a very practical bit of local history.