The Big Four Inn opened on July 2, 1921. The lavish resort was the brainchild of Wyatt and Bethel Rucker, who settled in Everett in 1890 and ran a sawmill in Lake Stevens. In 1915, the Rucker brothers began operating the branch railroad that ran from Hartford, near Lake Stevens, to the mining town of Monte Cristo, deep in the Cascade range. They did so primarily to transport timber from east of Granite Falls to their Lake Stevens mill, but the railroad, which they named the Hartford Eastern, also provided passenger and cargo service to the settlements, lumber camps, and mines along the route from Granite Falls to Monte Cristo.
The Hartford Eastern proved popular with tourists because it provided the only access to some spectacular mountain scenery (the railroad's grade would later provide much of the route for the Mountain Loop Highway from Granite Falls to Barlow Pass). Taking note of the increased tourist ridership and the success of their hotel in the old mining town of Silverton, the Ruckers decided to build a new upscale resort in the wide valley beneath the precipitous 4,000-foot-high north face of Big Four Mountain, about four miles east of Silverton. The area had previously been known as Camp Glacier, for the icy snowfields at the base of the mountain, or Trout Marsh homestead, but the Ruckers named their inn after the mountain, which is called Big Four because at certain seasons a snowfield high on its eastern face appears in the shape of the number 4. (The "4" snowfield is not visible from the site of Big Four Inn).
The Rucker brothers spent $150,000 constructing Big Four Inn and its surrounding amenities in the spring of 1921. They dammed Perry Creek to provide water and produce electricity to heat and light the resort. All the rooms and cabins had hot and cold running water. In addition to the grand main lodge and cabins, the resort featured a nine-hole golf course, tennis courts, and an artificial lake. The Ruckers used "gas cars" (buses designed to run on rail tracks) to bring guests to the inn over their railroad line. They kept the line open through the winter as far as Big Four, making the inn a year-round resort and a destination for winter sports enthusiasts.