BACK WHEN: Chick’s Marina, other businesses remembered

THE FEBRUARY PICTURE of the past received many responses last month.

Most of the comments were about Chick’s Marina, which was 127 W. First St. The photo was taken between 1949 and 1950.

In 1936, Central Motor Parts was at 127 W. First St.

The 1950 Port Angeles City Directory lists Chick’s Marina, owned by Charles Lind, as the next business apparently to go into the building.

Ron Wasnock wrote that the photo was pretty easy for an old timer growing up with a fishing pole in one hand and a can of worms in the other to recognize.

Lind was a very popular figure in downtown Port Angeles.

Wasnock said, “I remember how he always had the time to give fishing advice and information to me and my young friends.”

Wasnock said his best recollection places Lind there from the late 1940s to at least 1957, when the building later housed the 88 Cent store, with Bay Variety as the neighbor.

With no 1949 Directory to back it up, Chick’s could have been there in the late 1940s.

Bobbie Rich said that Chick’s Marina started on First Street and then moved around the corner to Oak Street.

On one side of the store he sold sporting goods and on the other side was a lunch counter.

Rich’s mother worked the lunch counter. Every morning at her home, she would bake cream pies to sell at Chick’s. Her pies were well known around the town, Rich said.

Rich included a story about a man who came into the store and told her mother he had just shot a coyote with babies and did she want one.

Rich said, “She brought the pup home, and put him in a box by our Siegler Oil Heater to keep him warm. In the middle of the night the little guy howled at the moon.

“Our cat loved to play with the pup but after a couple of months we took him to Seattle and the Woodland Park Zoo accepted him.”

Allen Brannin wrote that the photo was taken sometime in the early 1950s before the parking was changed from angle to parallel.

He said he got his hunting and fishing licenses there at Chick’s Marina.

Brannin’s dad and a neighbor, Del Ihrig, hunted for cougar and at least once gave the meat to Lind to serve his customers.

Later the Marina moved to north Oak Street.

The traffic on First Street was changed to one way in the late 1960s.

Lind often had a display case with ice out front displaying a large salmon that one of his customers had caught.

“That was back when everyone could fish,” Brannin said.

Larry Edfelt said that when he was a boy in the 1950s Chick’s Marina was where he spent his time when he was in downtown Port Angeles.

There was also a coffee shop and even a couple of plywood boats and outboard motors for sale.

Edfelt said, “It was a one-stop shopping place for fishing nuts like me. Chick’s sold jars of herring preserved in oil which I bought for fishing off the Owen’s Brothers dock a few blocks away. At Christmastime I made sure Lind knew which rod or reel I wanted my dad to buy me for Christmas.

“After trundling off to college in 1960, I still came back to Chick’s Marina when I came home at Christmas and summertime to get the latest steelhead and salmon fishing info. I loved that place and Chick was a wonderful friend to a young guy who enjoyed being around him.”

Rose and Richard Dean both have wonderful memories of Chick’s.

It was complete with a good supply of fishing and hunting gear, a lunch/coffee counter, and a good supply of patrons, mostly fishermen and hunters who loved to swap tales — and a few lies — about the big one that got away.

Rose Dean remembered going to the store with her parents for supplies when they had the resort at Diamond Point.

It was a social gathering place and her parents had a chance to enjoy the camaraderie on their monthly commodity trip to Port Angeles.

Richard Dean remembered Chick’s as the place where his father bought him his first 30.06 Winchester rifle with a 2.5 to 10 power Bausch and Lomb scope.

This was a real treasure to have his own rifle when he was still in junior high at Roosevelt School.

He said still has that prized 30.06 pre 64 Winchester.

In 1956, Chick’s moved to 117 N. Oak and the building was vacant for several years and the number 127 disappeared from the city directories.

In the 1959-60 Port Angeles Directory there was a listing at 129 W. First St., for Thrifty 88 Center, with Anna Knudson as owner.

(This was the same building where Chick’s Marina was located, only the number was changed to 129 W. First).

Later, when her daughter married Robert Green he took over the management of the Knudson’s Variety Store at 105 W. First St. and also the Thrifty 88 Center.

By 1965, the address of the Knudson-Green Variety Store had changed to 113 West First St. and 105 W. First St. was Willi-Lous.

Marsh’s Variety was at the 113 W. First St. address in 1969 and stayed until at least 1975.

By 1978, Western Auto was listed as resident.

In 1988, Ron Bradshaw purchased the 88 Cent Store but he sold it in 1996, complaining he could not compete with Walmart which had just moved to Port Angeles.

Zeller Antique Mall was there for a few years.

The building is now owned by a company in California and I haven’t been able to discover any future plans for the site.

Diamonds 5 cent to $1 was first listed in the Port Angeles Directory in 1950.

The owner was Peter R. Walker, but by 1965 the manager was John Jones and the name changed to Rasco’s Diamonds.

By 1970, Diamonds was dropped from the name and it was just Rasco’s.

Bruce Knight wrote that 129 W. First St. was the 88 Center, but now part of the building is vacant and the other part is a martial arts dojo.

Knight said that starting in the early 1960s and for many years he did his Christmas shopping there.

Bay Variety is just to the west and carries many of the same things the 88 Cent store carried.

Knight said his wife always loved the Christmas season at the 88 Cent Store because it brought back good memories of Christmases gone by.

Rudy and April Hiener came to town in 1972 and they purchased the Rasco Variety store.

In 1986, they renamed the store Bay Variety.

In 2003, the Hieners’ daughter, Michelle, and her husband, Mark Adolphsen, purchased the business and have continued to operate it.

Chris Guillory wrote that he always enjoyed Bay Variety and the owners were very friendly.

There have been lots of people who came into the store and shared their feelings of sadness that the store would be closing.

There are items one could not find elsewhere as the owners always tried to keep a select stock.

The store is up for sale and if there are no buyers, the final sales will start in mid-April and end by the middle of May.

Neither owner has any great plans except to take it easy for awhile.

January comment

Lisa Hilt wrote regarding last month’s Log Cabin column, that staying at the cabins during the winter would have been an experience as there was no insulation or wood stoves.

She wondered how the laundry dried that was hanging on the first cabin’s porch in the photo.

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Alice Alexander is a Clallam County historian, author, and a descendent of an Elwha Valley pioneer family. She is a recipient of a 2014 Clallam County Heritage Awards. She can be reached at bretches1942@gmail.com.

Alice’s Clallam history column appears the first Sunday of every month, alternating with Linnea Patrick’s Jefferson County history column on the third Sunday of the month.