Mill Creek is a city in Snohomish County, Washington, United States. It is located between the cities of Everett and Lynnwood, approximately 20 miles (32 km) northeast of Seattle. The city has a population of 18,244 as of the 2010 census, and is estimated to have over 20,000 residents as of 2018. The city lies along State Route 527 and North Creek, a tributary of the Sammamish River, on the east side of Interstate 5.

The city is one of the wealthiest suburbs in the Seattle metropolitan Place and was originally a planned community conceived in the 1970s. The planned further was centered approaching a country club and golf course, with supplementary development occurring understandable in far ahead phases. It was incorporated as a city in 1983, shortly after the success of the first phase of development, and underwent major population addition due to continued suburban improve and annexation of understandable areas. The city’s downtown area is centered a propos the Mill Creek Town Center, a mixed-use lifestyle center and retail complex that opened in 2004.

The Mill Creek area was originally decided in the in advance 20th century by various farming families, from whom several local placenames are now derived. After the construction of the Bothell–Everett Highway in 1913 as part of the Pacific Highway, two junctions at Murphy’s Corner and Wintermute’s Corner gained little stores and gas stations to assistance visitors. In 1931, Doctor Manch N. Garhart acquired 800 acres (320 ha) in the Place and used it to add Gravenstein apples and Bartlett pears while also raising cattle. The Garhart property, named Lake Dell Farm for a little reservoir built by local families, was unconventional sold in 1967 to genuine estate developers after the make public for local lumber and fruits had declined.

The Garhart property, along behind several adjacent to farms, were optioned by various genuine estate developers in the 1960s and 1970s as a potential master planned community due to its proximity to the recently completed Interstate 5. It would be the first protester planned city in Washington state, following in the footsteps of earlier planned cities in imitation of Longview, built in 1918. The community, named “Olympus”, was planned to swell 3,300 acres (1,300 ha) in its first phase gone 1,300 acres (530 ha) for homes, an industrial park, a shopping center, and a golf course. After a local recession in the to come 1970s, the progress project was sold in 1973 to Tokyu Land Development and intended by a auxiliary of the Obayashi Corporation named United Development. The build up was renamed “Mill Creek”, beating out the Chinook Jargon word “Klahanie”, although there had never been a mill in the vicinity and a waterway of that pronounce was not present in the Place until the 2000 renaming of Smokehouse Creek.

Mill Creek’s master set sights on was submitted to the county council in January 1974. A homeowners relationship was conventional in December 1974 gone funding from United Development to direct the area’s security patrol, street maintenance, and additional tasks. The initial purpose included consist of 4,600 homes, with eventual plans to house 12,000 people, a 260-acre (110 ha) park, and an 18-hole golf course. Construction began in upfront 1975 on the golf course and adjacent to country club, while the first homes were under construction by the later year. The first set of homes were intended to resemble country residences, with large floorplans and prominent use of wood furnishings, and sold for an average of $65,000 (equivalent to $292,000 in 2019 dollars). Tokyu Land Development unconventional re-used these home designs for the domestic shout from the rooftops in Japan, where they were sold below the “Mill Creek” brand in the 1990s. The resolved phase of the native Mill Creek development, consisting of 33 condominiums, was completed in late 2003.