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A Newsletter of the White River Valley Museum |
October 2004
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Auburnâs Named Corners
by Marjori Rommel
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The Corner: It was an American institution in the 20s, 30s and 40s -ö a drive-up counter or mini mom-and-pop store that, before the days of superhighways, popped up along the roads that went from here to there, serving -and making a living from local custom and passing trade.
Little places, often not much bigger than a breadbox, some Corners had gas pumps, some did not, a few even had motels or cabins, but all spread their awnings at the beginning of the business day, offering soda pop, candy bars maybe even milk, bread, and other necessities --Îtil sunset, when they closed their doors, folded their awnings, and their proprietors went home to supper.
A Corner was a local landmark whose name often far outlived its original function, as did Auburnâs four special Corners, each named for the family who ran it, each serving a neighborhood, a road, and the people who traveled it, defining an era now all but gone.
Meredith Corner, later the Meredith Grocery owned and operated by Ann and Virgil Swanson, served the Meredith Hill community on the eastern slope of the West Hill from its position at the Southwest corner of 37th and the West Valley Highway. An animal hospital now stands in its place.
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Gallagherâs Corner, on the northwest corner of Main and what was then known as the West Valley Road, is best remembered as a drive-up A&W Root Beer counter, serving hamburgers and pop÷real root beer, orange soda, and a thoroughly disgusting combination of the two, known as ãSwamp Waterä --to at least two generations of Auburn teens. The orange and brown sign could be seen from the steps of City Hall; so could the big brown A&W Root Beer barrel on the counter.
Kenny Bradford, who worked 45 years in the meat department at Masseyâs on Main and D Southeast, remembers Mrs. Gallagherâs six-foot-long marble counter, and that she kept the thick glass A&W Root
Beer mugs in the freezer, so her drinks were always frosty cold. ãAnd her hamburgers were sooooo good!ä
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Those hamburgers were so good they continued to draw young customers on Friday and Saturday nights through the 50s and into the early 60s÷adolescent Boomers who drove an endless slow ãloop,ä west on Main to Gallagherâs, then east again, munching and sipping, one hand on the wheel.
In its heyday, Gallagherâs Corner also benefited from the presence of two car repair businesses across the road, on the southeast and northeast corners of the intersection, and a series of funeral homes --built by Lightle in the 50s, then owned by Edline, and later, Yahn & Son, south across Knickerbocker (the old winding road up Cemetery Hill).
The West Valley Road, now more familiarly known as the West Valley Highway, was a main road between Tacoma and Seattle until the 40s, and still showed some of its brick surface near Algona and Sumner, recalls Mountain View Cemetery Director Arnie Galli, Jr.
In the old days, before it was an A&W, Galli recalls, Gallagherâs Corner was a lot like Burson Luckyâs place on 22nd and the East Valley Road, which had a gas pump and a tiny store where you could get bread and milk, candy bars and pop. Like the others, Luckyâs was the convenience store of its day, Galli said. ãWe didnât stop there very often. You could get a soda for a dime, but it was the Depression, and you didnât have a dime, so too bad.ä
By the time the Japanese returned to the Valley after World War II, said Valley long-timer Sauce Shimojima, the pump in front of Luckyâs wasnÕt working, and neither was the store, though Burson, ãjust lived there.ä
Auburn was smaller in those days, Bradford recalls. Scarff Motors marked city limits on the north, Hoskins Corner marked city limits on the east, and you could stop at any one of the Corners and not risk getting run over, crossing the road. ãYou sure couldnât do that now.ä
As was the case in other American communities, Corners were usually located in undeveloped rural areas on the edge of town, and had little if any connection to downtown. Here in Auburn, ãGallagherâs and Cooperâs were way out in the boondocks,ä long time resident Virgil Ungherini says. ãYou had no possibility of being run over by anything other than maybe a horse-drawn carriage.ä
Horses are rare on any Auburn road these days. For years, now, increased vehicle traffic on the West Valley Highway has led to road improvements that have eaten away at the former Gallagherâs lot, leaving only a patch of bare gravel at the foot of Cemetery Hill, --and a lot of memories.
Hoskins Corner, at the Southeast corner of Main and R, was another mom-and-pop outfit, long, low, and once white÷a wooden building running parallel to Main Street a block north of the railroad tracks. It sat right on the curve, too close to the street to have an actual awning, but did have a narrow wooden cover, and a couple of gas pumps, recalls Johnny Hamakami, who, as a kid, lived a block away.
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Bradford, who was born on Main Street, says he bought all his chewing gum from Grace Hoskins, who ran the place. Her husband, Sonny Hoskins, was an engineer on the Northern Pacific Railroad.
ãHoskins had a counter, snacks, some grocery items÷bread and such÷it was there before the war,ä remembers John Hamakami, who lived a block away, ãand there was a son and daughter, all gone now,ä he said, like the store itself. Apartments now fill the space where it stood empty, after the war.
Farther south, along A Street Southeast, on the old Sumner Highway near Coolâs Cafe, was another little corner grocery, Virgil Ungherini recalls, ãbut I donât remember its name. That was in 1936, and that little place was way out of town, almost as far into the boonies as Cooperâs Corner was.ä He does remember, though, that Curly Baker, the owner, ãhad a motel there, and some pretty good-looking daughters.ä
Cooperâs Corner, six miles east and roughly halfway to Enumclaw on the Auburn-Enumclaw Road (State Highway 164), at one time was an old-fashioned country store. Galli remembers it as a rectangular little building with a wooden awning÷a dingy white, wood-sided building that looked a little like a fireworks stand.
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Clemence Baker, whose family moved to Algona from Eastern Montana in the mid-30s, remembers Cooperâs Corner as ãan actual store you could walk into, when we first came. There were a couple of outbuildings, too, a garage, and what might have been a barn. We stayed a week in a big brown house behind the store --[the house is still there]-- but never went inside the store; we had no money.ä She also remembers another country store half a mile further up the hill, at the Newaukum Grange.
ãI used to wait on Mrs. Cooper at Masseyâs,ä Bradford recalls. ãShe always wore a hat with a feather in it. A nice lady.ä
The store at Cooperâs Corner, said Hamakami, is still there, and still in use÷as a collection point for aluminum cans and other recyclables.
Brownâs Corner, half a mile west of Cooperâs Corner on the south side of SR 164 where it intersects Academy Drive, had a gas pump back in the mid-30s, Baker recalls. The store is still in operation, the biggest and busiest gas station between Auburn and Enumclaw.
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All photographs are from the Puget Sound Regional Archives (PSRA), King County Assessors Office Property Record Cards; the tax account number identifies each parcel of land.
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Locating Historic Photographs through the Puget Sound Regional Archives
If you are looking for photographs of, or other information about, a property or building in King, Kitsap, or Pierce County, the Puget Sound Regional Archives may be a good first stop. Their collections include a broad range of primary source information on regional communities, buildings, businesses, genealogy, land use, local government policies and actions, property ownership, roads, and more.
To locate property records through the Puget Sound Regional Archives, a tax parcel number is required. Numbers for King County may be found online by using Parcel Viewer at King Countyâs Geographic Information System (GIS) Center
(www.metrokc.gov/gis/mapportal/PViewer_main.htm). To contact the Regional Archives, call (425) 564-3940, e-mail
Archives@bcc.ctc.edu, or write to Puget Sound Regional Archives, Pritchard-Fleming Building, 3000 Landerholm Circle SE, MS-N100, Bellevue, WA 98007-6484. For further information on accessing the archives, go to
www.secstate.wa.gov/archives/archives.aspx and scroll down to ãLocal Government Archives,ä then click on ãPuget Sound Region.ä
An interesting aside: many of the photos at the county repository originate from the Historical Records Survey of the late 1930s. This survey was part of Franklin D. Rooseveltâs Works Progress Administration (WPA), a broad government initiative to create more jobs during the Depression. The Historical Records Survey, among other things, hired unemployed teachers, clerks, librarians, and archivists to research and compile records of buildings and properties in each county throughout the United States, and often to photograph them as well. The WPA was slowly phased out as the economy began to recover in the early 1940s, and has left us many wonderful legacies.
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