William R. Lotz

We first met William R. Lotz back on December 6, 2012 when we heard his story about his father patrolling the streets of Olympia during the Indian Wars of 1855-1856 and being allowed to accompany him. At that time we also learned of William's newspaper career, but we didn't discuss his retirement in 1904 or other facets of his life.

W.R. Lotz on left at the Warren store

William decided to retire in Warren and continued to share his thoughts and opinions in writing to the local newspapers, especially the fact that he did not approve of changing Mount Rainier's name to "Tahoma."   But, he also spent much of his free time cultivating plants on his three acres on the southern shore of Hales Pass.

He exhibited vegetables at the Puyallup Fair and, in his usual fashion, his display attracted the attention of many of the fair visitors.  His label for the potatoes read "Maggie Murphy Potatoes raised by Mike O'Connell at O'Brien."  The visitors were overheard to comment "Those are sure Irish potatoes."  William's plants included many native plants and trees, berries and evergreens.  He had more than twenty varieties of apple trees, some pear trees, and of course huckleberries.

In 1914 in letters to his daughters, Gertrude and Grace, he wrote "I had drawn up and had signed a petition with 136 signatures for the formation of the Hale's Pass Voting Precinct."  Barring objection from the Rosedale and Artondale precincts "the new precincts will take in all the waterfront from Wollochet to Horsehead bays, including Arletta and Cromwell.  The voting place will be at People's Hall (Warren)...I know over 50 voters who did not go to the polls in the election this month, on account of the distance."

When William exhibited his produce and plants at the Bay Island Fair in 1917 he also petitioned Pierce County for a permanent wharf at Warren. He was one of the individuals invoolved in the incorporation of the Hale's Pass and Wollochet Navigation Company.

Lotz and dog in front of the Warren Community Hall

 William died in 1937 in his mid-80s.  However, his last activity was serving on the election board at the polls in the precinct he had helped to create.

William's daughter, Grace Lotz Woodruff, was married in June, 1908, and lived in Tacoma and Portland, Oregon. In 1964, she mentioned she had three daughters, ten grandchildren, and five great grandchildren and that they were scattered about in other cities.  However, she was living at the old place in Warren where her father had retired in 1904.

© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.

Tony and Donald A. Gilich

In almost all of the stories about emigration it seems that the people leave their homelands because of hard times.  But have you noticed that rarely are the hard times explained.  It's like it doesn't matter, its just hard times.  I thought perhaps a short explanation of what those hard times were in Croatia were when so many of our settlers left their homeland and came to America and eventually settling in Gig Harbor.  I'll try not to bore you though.  

Napoleon conquered Venice and Dalmatia in 1797 but ceded the terrorizes to Austria.  He then defeated Austria in 1805 and annexed Dalmatia. in 1814, and until 1914, after the fall of Napoleon, Dalmatia once again became a part of Austria.  Once Austria gain control they forced Italianization upon the people, introducing the Italian language in schools and public administration.  Suddenly there was a reawakening of Croatian national consciousness.  The population on Brac resisted long and hard and its struggle lasted into the 20th century.  

In 1914 the vineyards were being destroyed due to philloxera and sailing ships deserting the seas around the island mass emigration began.  This period was followed by the rumbling of World War I when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia in July 1914..  Croatia suffered the loss of lives of the many young men who fought in the Austrian armies on the fronts of Soca and in Galicia.

   

As a result, in 1899 Andrew Gilich sensing the dismal times to come left Sumartin on the Island of Brac and immigrated to Vancouver, British Columbia and went to work on a fishing boat named "Rainier".  When he took over the helm of a seiner "Traveler" a short time later he moved to Gig Harbor, and later owned "Saint Mary".  Eventually he owned or was a partner in nine fishing boats but he was also a successful businessman.  Andrew was one of the founders of the Gig Harbor National Bank as well as a founder of the Friday Harbor Canning Company, and with his partner Justin Richardson built the Peninsula Hotel.  

Don's father, Tony Gilich came to Gig Harbor in 1915 at age 20 he had a couple contacts in Gig Harbor:  John Novak because his father (Don's grandfather) had gone to school in Brac with John, and his cousin Andrew.  With his brother's tutelage Tony rapidly took to fishing and the sea.  Two years later Tony was able to use his earnings to buy an interest in the "Commander", a 62-foot seiner built by the Skansie Boat Building Company.  As skipper Tony and his crew did very well fishing the salmon banks in the San Juan Islands waters.  Tony also fished with John Novak and Samuel Jerisich. 

Tony was neither literate nor a citizen, but when World War I started he volunteered to serve in the US Army and was accepted.  After he came out of the service from Camp Fort Lewis in 1919 he had Petrich (Western Boat) in Old Town (Tacoma) build his own boat, "Victory".  That year, because the run of salmon in the Puget Sound was small, Tony made a risky decision to take his boat to Kodiak Alaska in hopes of a better catch.  The waters and the weather were something he had not seen before - exceptionally high waves, strong winds, and very rough weather.  But the season was very successful and he was able to pay the balance owed on "Victory".  However, Tony never returned to the Alaskan waters to fish.

 Tony married one of John's daughters, Angeline.  Tony's cousin Andrew Gilich had also married one of John Novak's daughters, Antoinette.  Both the daughters were 1/8 members of the Puyallup Tribe.  In July 1920 Don was born at home the midwife that delivered him was his Grandmother.   Josephine Novak, his grandmother, registered Don in the Puyallup tribal records and he was, after the Boldt Decision in 1974 Don was offered a fishing card but Judge Jack Tanner in the US  District Court located Tacoma refused to allow him to receive it. 

One of the more intriguing tricks Tony used when fishing for herring was a wooden salmon.  He had carved a wooden salmon, inserted lead weights in it so that it would dive down under the water.  Then one of the crew members would operate the salmon with strings.  It was placed right by the bolt which operated the purse and kept the herring from swimming out of the net.  Don said that he believes they used air pressure now rather than the more romantic wooden salmon puppet.

Don went to Lincoln School and Union High School.  He indicated that all his young life he was taunted by the kids and called "a dirty Indian" and most of the tormentors had Yugoslavian names.  It certainly didn't make for an enjoyable childhood.  

Don started fishing with his father in 1936 when he turned 16.  They fished all summer and fall that year.  When he got back he made up his sophomore year and started his junior year.  However he flunked one subject and instead of making it up, he quit school and when fishing full time.

But when the US entered WWII, the Navy and the Coast Guard needed boats to patrol the Washington coastline.  Don was 21 and while he was docked in Friday Harbor while fishing the Coast Guard came aboard and explained their need.  The Gilich family volunteered their boat but the Coast Guard didn't have anyone to operate the "Victory".  Don volunteered to service like his father, Tony had done during WWI, but Don could not pass the physical.  The Coast Guard accepted him anyway as Temprary Reserve.  At first he patrolled from Seattle but later was transferred to Port Angeles.  While there Don was able to pass the Coast Guard exam in 1942 and became the head of the Northwest vessels serving the Coast Guard in its war effort.  The "Victory" was a crash recovery boat for aircraft while used on behalf the Coast Guard.

After the war, Don went back to fishing; and he would operate the boat during the fall season and Tony, his dad, would operate during the summer season.   Then in 1971 Tony retired and Don operated the "Victory" full-time.

In 1972 the "Victory" added yet another adventure to its career.  Paramount Studios leased the "Victory" for a feature role in the movie "Hit" starring Richard Pryor and Billie Dee Williams.  The movie was shot in Gig Harbor, Port Townsend and Hadlock --- just another event in a long hardworking life, dedication and accomplishments the Gilichs made in the fishing industry and community.

© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.

Wednesday March 15, 1882 Emmett Hunt's Diary

Pleasant cloudy day.  Took our raft in tow & by 2 find ourselves at the mouth of the bay.  Tie up here & go home.  I find by a slight investigation tonight that I am four score or nearly there.

© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.

Twig Boat under Construction at Harbor History Museum!

Members of the Maritime Art Committee, plus a lot of friends, get started on the "Twig Boat"-- part of the museum's summer exhibit 14th Annual Juried Maritime Art Exhibit. The twig boat will be one of the hands-on interactives during the exhibit run. Kids of all ages will be able to add twigs and then attach their own personal notes to the boat. The boat builders have been scavenging twigs and branches for weeks in preparation of this first work day.

The 14th Annual Juried Maritime Art Exhibit runs from July 20 through August 25 later this summer. Artists can enter up to three works, at:

www.OnlineJuriedShows.com

Scroll down to the Harbor History Museum logo and click enter. All mediums accepted (except for digitally created works). More about the show and entry information at the OnlineJuriedShows.com site.


© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.

Spiro Babich

Have you ever considered how many Horatio Alger stories have played their life out in our community? Consider the young people who left their homelands, crossed the ocean (and continent) arriving in Gig Harbor virtually penniless. As you learned in Nick Bez's story, his fortune was 50 cents.

Spiro Babich

In comparison, Spiro Babich was wealthy -- he had twenty dollars in his pocket when he arrived in 1910 from Croatia, off the Adriatic coast of Yugoslavia.  Although the small town in which he lived was near the water, he came from a farming community some distance away in the countryside. His homeland was primarily an agrarian economy made up of small family farms growing olives, grapes, and vegetables.   

Spiro knew no English and, more surprisingly, did not know how to fish commercially. The only fishing he had done was to catch a fish for the dinner table. However, his brother Andrew was living here and he sponsored Spiro and became Spiro's employer. They first fished together on the seiner "President" where Spiro was engineer and Andrew was the skipper. As the two men became more aware of each other's instincts, they changed place.  

Spiro also benefited greatly from Samuel Jerisich's knowledge and success of fishing. Spiro married Julia Skansi, Peter Skansi and Melissa Jerisich Skansi's daughter May 20, 1919;  they had two son's, Peter and Paul.  Melissa died at age 23; Julia was born  July 22,1906.

By 1917, Spiro went off on his own and built the first of many vessels he would own during his lifetime. The "Superior," a 65-foot seiner, was the first of these. He would own and operate a boat for two or three years, then sell it and order another one. His next boat in 1924 was "Golden West." All in all, he owned around 20 purse seiners. Some of the others were "Vanguard," "Ranger," "Reliance," "Invincible," and in 1930 "Reliable," The only one he kept from first acquiring to the end of his year was the "Invincible" built in 1929.

Fishing boats "Sonia" and "Invincible" in harbor

He operated the "Invincible" from California to the Bering Sea at various times, and it was also used as a back-up vessel when needed.  It was finally sold in 1962.

In a very few years after arriving in America, Spiro had become enormously successful from commercial fishing. During the Depression he returned to Europe with his family on an ocean liner. This was a period in history that was not so generous with others who lost everything and when the stock market collapsed, people were jumping out of windows and off buildings committing suicide. Food lines were long and many were homeless, not only in America but also in Europe.

Spiro was one of the first local men to fish in the False Pass area of the Bering Sea and operated there for many years.  However in the early 1930s he also became very involved with the sardine fishing on the California coast. The "Reliable" was specifically built for sardine fishing in 1930 and the in 1936 his new boat, "Dependable" was built for sardine fishing as well, but lasted only one year before Spiro sold it along with all its equipment including nets, skiff, knives, forks, etc..

The next boat, "Crusader," was launched in 1937 but as Peter described it "she was a beautiful boat but had a 'hoodoo' career" The boat was eventually lost in Shumigan Islands, Alaska, while under charter.  

In 1940, Spiro's largest boat, "Western Queen" measuring in at 92-feet, was built. But when World War II began, the United States Government commandeered it and used it as a patrol boat. Spiro's fastest boat was built in 1944, the 90-foot "Liberator." It was one of the fastest fishing boats anywhere.

Spiro's last boat was the 66-foot "Julia B" and was used in False Pass, Alaska, and for local fishing in Puget Sound.

After Spiro passed away in 1957, a very fierce competitor paid him perhaps the ultimate compliment: "You know, there are a hell of a lot of fish gone up the river that wouldn't be there if Spiro were still alive."  A true testament to a man who, buy his own example, became admired and respected as the king of his domain. Or, as frequently remembered, as "the best fisherman in Gig Harbor."

© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.

Wednesday March 8, 1882 Emmett Hunt's Diary

Very fine day.  Took "Alice" & went to Steilacoom from there by land to Hillhurst.  Had a fine time dancing till that girl went home & as I could do no better I went to bed.

© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.

John and Edward Finholm

As a young boy Johnny used to love playing store.  He would set up a sawhorse table on the street in Olalla where he would sell fruits, vegetables, berries, bottles, etc. to the infrequent passersby.  Then as a teenager, Johnny worked for the Olalla Trading Company at age 17 and found that he did in fact have a natural affinity for mercantile marketing and dealing with the general public.

When Johnny and Eddie were young and still living in Olalla (Eddie was in high school) they used to go to Horseshoe Lake to the dances held there with their friends.  One night in 1932 a young lady, Frances Larson, was dancing with Eddie.  Frances was a classmate of his in school.  He introduced Frances to Johnny and Ted.  As Frances said in her oral history "I guess the sparks kind of started flying because Johnny asked for the next dance and the next dance and the next dance."  So from then on, Frances and Johnny went steady, got engaged in 1933 and married in 1934.

His uncle Leander Finholm and his cousin Hugo had moved to Gig Harbor from Olalla when Leander purchased 80% of the stock in the Inland Island Telephone & Telegraph Company in 1926. 

In 1933 Johnny bought the J. C. McKee Meat Market.  It was housed in a building owned by the Stanich brothers near the Shorline Restaurant and he rented the building for $17 a month.  The building included a gas pump and an ice machine.  Rents have certainly risen in that district over the years haven't they?

Axel Uddenberg had a grocery store nearby but he was also building a new store.  So he asked Johnny if he would be interested in buying the existing grocery store.  The year was 1935, the country still suffering from the Depression, but Johnny said yes.  He bought the grocery store for $3,000 and renamed it Finholm's Market.  The store only sold groceries so Johnny moved his meat market into the adjacent building and combined the two buildings into one store.  

His brother Eddie (Edward) was driving a truck for Pioneer Sausage in Tacoma.  Because Johnny needed another meat cutter, he hired Eddie to join him in the new store. and they became partners  The butcher shop handled not only the usual meat needs of the homemakers but also the custom cutting and wrapping meat for the farmers and hunters.  Due to the increase in business, and the fact that very few people owned freezers, Johnny and Eddie added a cold storage building and 700 lockers to the store.  They rented the lockers so that people had somewhere to keep and freeze their meats, vegetables and fruits.  Their father, Alfred, built all individual 700 lockers in 'cabinet' style.   Finholm's offered credit to all those in need; many paid their bills when they were able but many more did not.  Johnny refused to go after them for payment; he collected the bills and after selling the store and moving up to Franklin Street he threw all the old bills away.

Johnny and Eddie's mother died in 1941, and father, Alfred, sold the farm in Olalla and moved to a new house in Gig Harbor which he built just a few blocks from the Finholm Market.  Johnny and Eddie's brother, Ted, also moved to Gig Harbor when their father did.  Only their uncle Johannes remained in Olalla.  

In 1935 Johnny and Frances purchased the property at 8815 North Harborview Street.  They lived on the water and Frances opened a dress store on the street front.  In 1945 Johnny and his wife, Frances, built a three story structure, Finholm Building.  Johnny and Frances lived in the upper level, the street front was leased to various merchants over the years, and the basement apartment was lived in by relatives and also leased to many school teachers over the years.

And then, in 1946, the waterfront area became incorporated into a class four town.  With the incorporation into the Town of Gig Harbor, Johnny took on more and more leadership activities within the community.  He was one of the first elected council members and served for eight years.  That was followed by twenty years in the Planning Department.  He and Eddie started the first fire department following incorporation using volunteer firefighters.

In 1949 Johnny purchased the parking lot across from Shorline Restaurant where the original community bandstand once stood.  

In 1970 the brothers sold the market portion of Finholm's Market to Johnny Warsick but Eddie took it back in 1973 until 1979 when the market section was sold to Terry Groshong and the slaughtering business to Don Pack.  After Johnny retired he went commercial fishing with George Ancich in Alaska.  Johnny cooked for the crew while they were out.  Johnny and the Slavonian community had a great relationship through the years.  He supplied many of their boats with provisions when they left for fishing.  In fact, the Slavonians made him an honorary Slovenian and nicknamed him an "ich" on the end of his name.

At the time of Johnny's death in 1998 he had also been a 65-year member of the Gig Harbor Lions as well as an active member of the Peninsula Lutheran Church.  Eddie was also a long-term member of the Lions, Elks, Eagles, St. Nicholas Catholic Church and one of the founders of the Gig Harbor Golf Club.  All this including working with his brother on various community improvement activities.  Eddie died in 1996. 

The Finholm Stair Climb was once just a path up the hill.  The children used it to go to and from school as well as visiting with their friends and family living above North Harborview.  Eddie even used it to get to and from his home and the store.  Johnny used to take a bucket and clean it up every evening and keep the weeds and brush from overtaking the path.  The Gig Harbor Lions built the stair climb to honor the Finholm family for their long service on behalf of the Lions organization.  

© 2012 Harbor History Museum. All rights reserved.