Nick Bez (Nikola Bezmalinovic)

This limited biography of is about one of Gig Harbor’s early, successful businessmen who needs to be better known in our community.

Nick was born on August 25, 1895 in a stone house overlooking the Adriatic on the outskirts of the town of Selca, located on the eastern tip of the island of Brac.  He was the first of six children.  The family owned a small vineyard, a few olive and fig trees, a catch basin to save enough rainwater to last through all but the very driest summer.  They also had a small rowboat in which Nick, and later his brothers could fish in the Adriatic for sardine, eel and squid.

At age fifteen, he borrowed fifty dollars from his father and booked passage to the United States on an Italian ship.  He arrived in New York alone in 1910 and went to work in a restaurant to earn enough money to buy a train ticket to come west.  Nick had heard stories about the fishing and Gold Rush in Alaska, and he was also aware of several other Dalmatians living in Tacoma.  On a wintery day in 1911 Nick emerged from the train at Union Station in Tacoma with only fifty-cents remaining in his pocket.  Nick found work in an Old Tacoma sawmills and shortly thereafter a job as a deckhand on a towboat headed to Southeastern Alaska.

It took him six years of hard work and persistence to buy his own purse seiner.  This did not end his struggles for survival but instead started a new phase in his life.  In 1915, at age of 20, 6 foot 2 inches and 225 pounds, and as a boat owner Nick led the purse seiners against the beach seiners who used horses to drag flat nets on the shore in a no-holds-barred fight for the control of the lucrative Alaska salmon industry.  It was a long-drawn out, bloody conflict but in the end the purse seiners claimed victory.  

In 1919 at age 24, Nick americanized his name and became an American citizen as well as an established fisherman, and he owned 3 purse seiners.  Nick decided to branch out and in 1931 he got into the airline business buying Alaska Southern Airways.  Before another decade had passed his fishing boats had become canneries and with the airline he was flying men and supplies from the mainland to Southeastern Alaska.  He later sold the airline to Pan American making a large profit.  By 1946 he owned West Coast Airlines.  This was also the year he began canning fish on board a large converted freighter belonging to the United States (something he had been doing on his own ships on a limited scale for a number of years), supported by the government in Washington and financed by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. The avowed purpose of this undertaking was to prove 'that American fishermen could replace the Japanese’, who, in the years preceding World War II, caught and processed 66 per cent of the world's tuna in their floating canneries and virtually monopolized the multimillion dollar-a-year catch of the Bering Sea's huge king crabs. The experiment ended in 1948, deemed a complete success, and Bez returned to using his own floating canneries.

Nick Bez was one of the wealthiest and most influential of the Croatian Americans. He owned or controlled a string of fishing boats, four of the biggest salmon canneries in the Pacific Northwest, two gold mines, and an airline. His airline, Air West, an offspring of West Coast Airlines, was later sold to Howard Hughes for 100 million dollars.

He married (to the former Magdalene Dorotich, an American-born Croatian) and they had two boys. They settled in Gig Harbor and for around twenty years he would commute daily to Seattle to oversee his growing empire.  Eventually the family moved to Seattle where they established their permanent home.

Nick became a member of the Transportation Council of the United States Department of Commerce, the National Democratic Club, at one time serving as national treasurer, and many other organizations.  His influence was felt in Washington State politics as well.  His achievements were numerous.  His friends ranged from fishermen to bush pilots to presidents of the United States.

Because of his generous contributions to the Democratic party and his friendship with high government officials, including presidents, Bez has been accused of using his political connections to the detriment of small fishermen. This hurt the big fellow. He confessed that processors, including himself, "cotch too damn many feesh" to maintain an adequate supply. He favored a stabilization of the industry by developing new grounds and methods.

When Nick died in 1969 he had proved himself an industrious pioneer.  His rugged, adventuresome spirit led him to gamble against many odds, to come out the winner, and acquire financial independence and respect of his fellow men. His family still owns two houses and a lot in Millville.

© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.

June 20, 1880, Sunday

On this day Emmett Hunt wrote in his diary "Good weather.  Spent the day in ... talking, singing, strawberrying, etc and returned at 6:00 PM."

© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.

Corner of Dorotich Street and Harborview Drive

This corner has supported businesses since the turn of the last century.  In last Wednesday’s blog when we were discussing A. N. “Nick” Novakovich we mentioned that he moved across the street in 1924 after Martin Stanich purchased the property and rebuilt the building at the corner of Dorotich Street and Harborview Drive.

Harborview Drive with Stanich Store at right.  

What follows is a brief history of this property in the Town of Millville.

Joseph and Fred St. Peter purchased the land around 1906.  They built a wooden structure facing Dorotich Street and opened their grocery and mercantile store inside.

They didn’t remain in business very long because S. P. Strout bought the property and building around 1909.  Strout also bought a small barn behind the store building.  The store was stocked with groceries, bulk items, cookware, oil lamps, derby hats and common garden tools, seeds and the like.  His ads stated “Hay, Feed, Flour and General Family Supplies”.

Strout’s largest customer base was of course the fishermen who purchased their supplies before leaving for their long summers away from home.  He had a practice of “carrying” his customers until they could pay their bills after the fishing season which was then rewarded when the fishermen and their families paid.  The reward was a sack of something and this system lasted until 1917 when the economic downturn caused by World War I compelled him to change.  He called his new system “The McCaskey System”.  This system meant that he provided the customer with duplicate sales slips including their balance and a wall holder to store the debited slips in until they could pay.

Strout owned a beautiful team of horses that he used to make deliveries.  In a recollection by Nellie Austin Erickson, she told of the teams' frequent runaways.  Another resident at that time, Ethel Gayle Abel, remembered that when they went to Tacoma, they could leave their horses in Mr. Strout’s care where he kept horses and feed.

Anthony A. Rabasa lived in a small apartment above the barn.  He rented the store from Mr. Strout sometime in the teens.  Anthony’s brother, John Rabasa, owned a grocery store in Old Tacoma.  Anthony continued the trade built up with the Gig Harbor fisherman.  It was during Anthony’s time running the store that it caught fire and burned to the ground in 1924.

Following the fire, Martin Stanich, a lifelong fisherman, bought the property with his brother, Tony, from Mr. Strout.  They rebuilt the store but with the store facing Harborview Drive as the building does today.  The store prospered under their ownership until they retired in 1971.  During the final 12 years in business, Tony recalled that they included the Washington State Liquor Agency in their store for their customers’ convenience.  The Stanich brothers, like their predecessors, handled business on credit until the fishing season was over. 

Today the building houses Susanne’s Bakery & Deli and New York Nails Salon.

 Building in recent years

© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.

June 13, 1880, Sunday

On this day Emmett Hunt wrote in his diary "Another good day so went over to Mr. G's.  Found a hugh crowd and had a good time.  Left at 6:30."

© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.

Pt. Fosdick Ferry Landing Opens, June 8, 1928

Ferry City of Tacoma approaches the Pt. Fosdick Landing

On June 8, 1928, ferry traffic began between Point Fosdick and the end of Sixth Avenue in Tacoma.  Gig Harbor had begun ferry service in 1917 at the head of Gig Harbor,  west Gig Harbor in 1926 [now the Tides Tavern] and outside the mouth of Gig Harbor on February 24, 1928.

Pt. Fosdick was used until the first Narrows Bridge was opened in July 1940.  Deconstruction began a few months later with the expectation that it was unneeded.  But, with Galloping Gertie collapsing on November 7, 1940, Washington Navigation Co, who ran the ferries, had to scramble. Owner Bill Skansie told his wife, "We're back in business again!" Ferries began to run the next morning, November 8.

Unfortunately, the ferry landing at Point Fosdick was unusable, so the service was only between Gig Harbor and Pt. Defiance for a few weeks while crews rebuilt the Pt. Fosdick Landing.  Then all service shifted between Pt. Fosdick, Fox Island and Titlow Beach, Tacoma.  The landing outside the harbor was closed forever.

With the opening of the 1950 bridge, Pt. Fosdick was permanently closed and dismantled.  Today there is little trace of the landings or pilings beneath the beautiful homes that grace the hillside.

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

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.