Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Monroe, WA

Monroe is a city in Snohomish County, Washington, set near the Cascade foothills at the confluence of the Skykomish and Snoqualmie rivers, which join there to form the Snohomish River, about 30 miles northeast of Seattle.

Monroe began in 1864 as the settlement of Park Place, founded by Henry McClurg near a Skykomish trading-post site known as Tualco; it was renamed Monroe in 1890 in honor of President James Monroe and moved a mile northeast to meet the Great Northern Railway tracks.

Monroe was incorporated on December 20, 1902, following an 88-to-37 vote in favor.

In 1907 the state chose Monroe as the site of its second reformatory, and in 1908 the Pacific Coast Condensed Milk Company opened a condensery that became the largest producer of Carnation-brand condensed milk before closing in 1928.

The 2010 census counted 17,304 residents in Monroe living in 5,024 households, and by the 2020 census the city's population had grown to 19,699.

Monroe's largest employer is the Washington State Department of Corrections, which operates the Monroe Correctional Complex — the grown successor of the 1908 reformatory — with more than 1,100 jobs.

Monroe hosts the Evergreen State Fair, held annually in late summer since 1949 at the roughly 200-acre, county-owned Evergreen State Fairgrounds, a site that began as the Snohomish County poor farm.

The fairgrounds also include the Evergreen Speedway, a racetrack that hosted the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series from 1995 to 2000.

Monroe sits at the junction of U.S. Route 2, State Route 522, and State Route 203 and is promoted as the gateway to the Cascade Mountains and Stevens Pass.

The city's largest community park is the 64.5-acre Lake Tye Park, built around a 49-acre artificial lake stocked with fish and created as mitigation for the Fryelands industrial development.