This marked the completion of I-5 in Washington -- and indeed in the Pacific Northwest (the nearest stoplight was on the California side of the state line with Oregon) -- and the occasion was marked with a ceremony that was fairly typical for freeway openings during the 1960s. Various dignitaries came to the late-morning ceremony, which was held on the new Steamboat Slough Bridge just south of Marysville. State highway commissioner Harold Walsh of Everett served as the master of ceremonies, and there was the requisite bevy of beauties participating too; Miss Everett of 1968, Debbie Herivel, and Miss Marysville of 1968, Katherine Smith, snipped the ceremonial ribbon while the 1969 “royal court” from both cities looked on. Everyone was all smiles.