Published March 2004

City Floral: century
of blooming business

By Kimberly Hilden
SCBJ Assistant Editor

When former employees and longtime customers of City Floral stream into the Historic Everett Theatre on March 27, they’ll get a taste of vaudeville, enjoy a barbershop quartet and listen to Rhinestone Rosie belt out some turn-of-the-century tunes.

They will, for a few hours, be transported back in time 100 years to when City Floral took root in Everett and began selling its blooms, said owner Ralph Quaas, who started planning the centennial extravaganza two years ago.

“I hoped to have a show for employees and their families and customers and their families — the people responsible for City Floral’s existence for 100 years,” he said.

And what an existence it has been. Since its founding by William and Jennie Wallmark in 1904, The City Floral & Seed Co., as it originally was known, has endured numerous downtown relocations, ranging from its original address of 1916-1/2 Hewitt Ave. to its current site at 2802 Colby Ave.

It has expanded into other parts of Snohomish County, with the acquisition of floral outlets in Marysville, Snohomish and south Everett during the late 1960s and early 1970s. And it has contracted with the selling of those shops from 1978 through its sale of the south Everett facility in 1995, Quaas said.

The flower-and-gift business also has learned to compete in the digital age “like the rest of the world,” establishing a Web presence through Florists’ Transworld Delivery, or FTD, at www.ftd.com/cityfloral, said Quaas, who has been at City Floral’s helm since 1966 — but a part of its history since his birth in 1934.

Snohomish County Business Journal/ KIMBERLY HILDEN Ralph Quaas, owner of City Floral in downtown Everett, has been around flowers — and flower shops — his entire life. His father, J. Herbert Quaas, became a partner in City Floral a year before the younger Quaas was born.

Just a year before, in 1933, Quaas’ father, J. Herbert Quaas, became part-owner of City Floral, buying into the business then owned by Gretchen Meyer, a friend and fellow immigrant from Germany. The two continued their business partnership until Meyer’s death in 1961.

By that time, the younger Quaas had become a store fixture, and father and son became a team. Five years later, J. Herbert died, leaving Ralph as sole proprietor.

“Being an aggressive (business) person and getting into more trouble than it’s worth, I looked toward expansion,” Quaas said, noting the purchase of a retail flower shop in Marysville in 1969 and plans for expansion of the downtown Everett location.

“I had big dreams about entering the wholesale market, but in Everett, grocery stores were already doing that themselves,” he said.

Instead, he decided to expand his retail reach, opening City Floral South in Silver Lake in 1972 and acquiring a flower shop in Snohomish in 1974. The south Everett store then moved into and out of the mall before being sold in 1995. The Snohomish and Marysville stores were sold to City Floral personnel by early 1978.

“The Snohomish shop has (gone away) since then, but the shop in Marysville has really done well,” said Quaas, who continues to focus his attentions on the downtown Everett store and on serving the community through his volunteer efforts with various nonprofit and service organizations.

“If you have a small, private business and you’re not too greedy, there’s a lot of time to do good,” he said, smiling.

As for City Floral’s upcoming anniversary bash, Quaas said he is looking forward to seeing old friends — employees and customers alike — and hearing their City Floral stories.

One hundred years of them.

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