Novakovich Meat Market

A. N. “Nick” Novakovich was married to Joseph Dorotich’s daughter Clementina.  They built a house on one of the new plats in the Town of Millville which was platted by Clementina’s mother and father, John and Josephine Novak and Samuel Jerisich in the June, 1888.  The house is still standing and is a private residence located at 3422 Harborview Drive.

Nick and Clementina Novakovich with unnamed daughter

You can see a picture of them standing on the porch.  The only change in the façade now is an upper balcony in place of the two windows.

Unlike John Novak and his family, Nick did not Americanize his surname, keeping with Novakovich.

Nick was a butcher, and at first he built the meat market on the north side of the house setback slightly from Harborview Drive (formerly Front Street).  It was a very busy shop during the time that he did business there. The building survived until 2000 when the house was renovated and a driveway was put in its place. However,  a sign from the shop hangs in the Harbor History Museum.

Clementina Dorotich was born December 25, 1889 and died September 5, 1920 and is buried at Artondale Cemetery.  Nick later married Antica who was born February 15, 1885 and died April 7, 1957.  Nick himself was born December 7, 1874, and died February 26, 1942.  Both he and Antica are buried at Calvary Cemetery in Tacoma, a Catholic cemetery established in 1905.  

In 1924 the St. Peter Bros'/S. P. Strout General Merchandise building caught fire and burned to the ground.  Martin Stanich bought the property with his brother Tony, rebuilt the building, and Nick, the butcher, moved his shop across the street into the new store on December 12, 1924.

There were several other butchers operating in and around Gig Harbor at the turn of the century including one in John Novak’s General Merchandise store a little further down Harborview where you now find The Harbor Peddler.  [We talk more about the Novak’s in a future blog.]  W. M. Munden's Choice Meats and Desmore’s Meat Market (formerly Mosher’s Old Stand Meat Market) were two others at the corner of Pioneer Way and Front Street.   Mosher reopened both a grocery and a meat market in the Novak Building (later the Harbor Inn) in 1925.  

© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.

June 6, 1880, Sunday

On this day Emmett Hunt wrote in his diary "Nice day.  Robert and wife going West on a visit to went along and had a fine time.  Went strawberrying towards eve."

© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.

May 30, 1880

On this day Emmett Hunt wrote in his diary "Beautiful day.  Spent it all in reading, singing, lounging, etc.  Some visitors came in but nothing to me."

© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.

Wollochet Bay Oyster Company

Did you know that in 1935 a portion of the head of Wollochet Bay on Wollochet Drive and East Bay and Artondale Drives was the site of Wollochet Bay Oyster Company?

Paul Svinth and Billy Maloney standing next to the Sleepy Hollow sign.  

Frank Maloney and Dave Svinth were the founders and partners of the company and they planted tidelands which previously belonged to his wife’s stepfather, William McLaughlin, with oyster beds from 1935 until after WWII started.  The oysters were fattened by two fresh water creeks, on the west by a salmon-filled creek flowing from Maloney Creek in Rosedale and the second creek from the area known as Green Land.  The beds covered a broad area from the tide mudflats that stretched across the buttonhook curve that forms the bay’s northwest border, known as “Indian Point”.  They extended to the east where the second creek entered the bay behind the flat spongy land known as “Green Land”.

Frank and Dave used Japanese oyster seed as well as partially grown oysters from Shelton and over time, five tons of the tiny oysters from state land near Hood Canal.  The Japanese strain soon disappeared when no longer cultivated.

Dave Svinth had been a student at Pacific Lutheran College in 1934 but it was the midst of the Depression and jobs were hard to come by. 

They kept the planted oysters separated for optimum, single growth.  Frank’s wife, Helen, who kept their books, recalled in 1985 for Gladys Para that she remembered her husband walking out from their house with a lantern during the night-time low tides moving the mollusks apart so that they didn’t attach to each other.  Bathed and nourished by the creek's outflow, the oysters improved and developed into top quality and trade escalated.

The oysters were enjoyed by everyone.  The partners built a shucking house on the water’s edge just in front of where Dave erected a cabin on land leased from Frank.  There they sold freshly-opened oysters for 20 cents a pint to anyone who stopped by.  They also had a wholesale business with the recently opened Gig Harbor Safeway and a foot-route to homes in the North End of Tacoma. 

Dave Svinth,  in front of the cabin used for selling oysters.
 It was built of materials from the old Artondale School. 

Wollochet Bay Oyster Company was far enough from Minterbrook Oyster Company so rivalry didn’t exist between the two firms.  Frank and Dave learned from Minterbrook Oyster and adopted some of their practices.  One idea was the method for sterilizing with steam.  There were two springs close to the cement-floored shucking house and both springs tested pure water.  Both men had health permits; the shucking house had a steam sterilizer for their metal strainers and knives. 

Oysters were gathered at low tide onto floats which were then pulled in by rowboat and tied to a stake to await opening.  They used milk bottles at first for containers and soon replaced them with wide mouth Mason jars which they purchased wholesale from Safeway for 3 cents each.  Finally waxed paper cartons bearing their own label, Wollochet Bay Oysters, were used.  Safeway only marked up the oysters a nickel per pint and iced its orders immediately after arrival at the store.

Maloney continued the business for a while after Svinth left oystering and his cabin in 1941.   

© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.

Memorial Day in the Harbor

 People's Wharf, 1890

Here a crowd gathers on People's Wharf [now Tides Tavern] with flags flying to commemorate Memorial Day 1890.   Even dogs were invited.  Everyone were smartly dressed for the day.

Memorial Day began in the United States as Decoration Day in 1866.  It originated in the South as the day to decorate Confederate Soldiers' graves.  By 1888, the name evolved to Memorial Day nationally and became the day set aside to honor and remember those that had given their lives for their country.  

Members of the Grand Army of the Republic

Several Gig Harbor Peninsula pioneers were Civil War Veterans.  Miles Hunt (fifth from the right) settled in Artondale in 1877 with his wife and five children.  He had served with the Second Michigan Cavalry regiment.  His close friend from the regiment, Thaddeus Waters, also came to Gig Harbor. Joseph Goodman (standing to the right of Hunt) brought his family to the harbor in 1883.  He was part of the Forty-fifth Wisconsin Regiment.  They were all members of the local chapter of the GAR, a Civil War veterans organization.  Their wives formed the auxiliary, the Women's Relief Corps.

Linda McCowen, Historic Photo Editor
© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.

May 23, 1880, Sunday

On this day Emmett Hunt wrote in his diary "Nice day for us.  Had a good old fashioned social sing once more again after which rided any way back to Bob's."

© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.

Gig Harbor's First Theatre

1925 photo by Marvin Boland

In late 1924-25 Austin and Harriett Richardson and Andrew Gilich built the first theatre building seating 450 people in downtown Gig Harbor.

The first order of business was in February 1925 when the manager, Mr. OM Jacobson of The Movie Show inaugurated a contest to name the new theatre.  The winner would win $10 and the second and third winners would each receive a 30-day pass.

Previously plays, movies and vaudeville acts were performed at the Community Hall.  A couple of those early acts according to news accounts were “The Chorus Lady” starring Pat O’Brien and Margaret Livingston; “The Beloved Brute” starring Marguerite de la Motte, Victor McLaglin and others.

The winning name was Empress Theatre and it opened the doors to a packed house on April 12, 1925.  Bebe Daniels starred in the vaudeville act “Miss Bluebeard” with the Alvord Kiddies as the feature act performing dancing, singing, acrobatics and telling jokes.  For the movie, it was the usual Mack Sennett comedy, followed by Pathe Review with Mrs. Higgins of Gig Harbor, Miss Hazel Hoydon of Tacoma and Mr. J. S. Bogan singing.  Admission was 35 cents for adults and 15 cents for children.

Street scene, December 1949, Frank Shaw Photo

On November 8, 1929, O. M. Jacobson who owned and managed the theatre for the past five years sold his interests to R. P. Burfield, an experienced showman.  The theatre was closed while it installed the updated Holmes Sound Equipment and underwent interior decoration improvements at a cost of $10,000.  The grand opening was scheduled for November 15, 1929,  showing talkies for the first time in Gig Harbor.  It was leased to D. C. Milward and Marvin Dymess of Seattle.  G. Donald Gray, baritone with KOMO and Sidney Dixon of KJR, both appeared at the grand opening.  The new management ran shows on Saturday and Sunday with matinees on both days; prices remained at 35 cents for adults and 15 cent for children with the matinee price at 25 cent for adults and 10 cents children.

In May the front of the theatre building was treated to new decoration which, according to The Peninsula Gateway, vastly improved the building.  On May 30, 1930, Mr. Burfield, manager of the Empress Theatre decided to change the name of the playhouse and has given the high school students the opportunity to choose the new name.  Mr. Burfield and Mr. Richardson, building owner, would pick the best suited name on June 1, 1930.  The name they chose was Peninsula Theatre.  For some strange reason the name suddenly appeared as Peninsulan Theatre with no explanation on November 7, 1930.  But by December 19, 1930 they were back to using Peninsula Theatre again.  By the end of 1930 the theatre started experiencing strong competition from the New Community theatre in Port Orchard.

With the effects brought on by the Depression and other international events including the conflict in Europe, the theatre suffered.  It was renamed The Blue Eagle Theatre and was named for Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s National Recovery Act.  They planned on opening for programs Friday and Sunday with the first show August 4, 1933 being “King Kong."  Due to the economic condition, it did not succeed and was closed for at least a year.

Peninsula Gateway Ad, 1937

Leona Nikolac, cashier at the Roxy, 1948

On February 14, 1936 the theatre was sold to M. H. Thompson and F. M. Higgins.  However, by June 1936 Mr. Higgins gifted his share to the Thompson family and was no longer involved.  The Thompsons renamed the theatre The Roxy.  Rex Thompson, son of M. H. Thompson, reopened the Roxy with A. E. Merry as manager.  Movies again had become big time entertainment and the Roxy ran three movies every night.  Westerns were very popular in Gig Harbor at the time. 

The Merrys continued to run the theatre until 1955 when Mr. Merry locked the door for the very last time and the building stood empty for a long time.

As time passed, the final occupants were a large colony of working bees that produced a bonus of honey when the building was torn down.     

© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.