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Gig Harbor Now and Then: Berkheimer’s original location has a deep Heritage

Posted on December 18th, 2023 By: Greg Spadoni

From a previous column, we know that Flamo, Standard Oil’s brand name for propane, was first demonstrated in Gig Harbor in 1930, in Berkheimer’s store. That led to the question:

Where was Berkheimer’s store located?

Answer: at 3118 Harborview Drive in Gig Harbor.

Berkheimer’s first store in Gig Harbor was on the southwest corner of the intersection of today’s Harborview Drive and Pioneer Way. It was in the very same building now occupied by Heritage Distilling. Built by Austin Richardson in 1927, the structure has been extensively remodeled more than once since Berkheimer’s time there.

X marks the spot of Berkheimer’s first store in Gig Harbor. It was the original tenant of the same building now occupied by Heritage Distilling. It’s where propane debuted on the Peninsula. Pierce County Assessor-Treasurer aerial base map.

On the Gig Harbor Now Facebook page, Cynthia Cunningham Platon was right on target with her comment that Berkheimer’s store was on the site presently occupied by the Threshold Building (aka the Russell Family Foundation Building) on the north side of Harborview Drive, a couple hundred feet east of today’s Heritage Distilling building. But that was the second location, beginning in 1933. We specified that we were looking for the Berkheimer store’s first Gig Harbor location, which opened in 1927.

In 1931 Berkheimer was selling his demonstrator Flamo range (in the middle of the bottom row) for “Only $55.” This advertisement from the February 13, 1931, Peninsula Gateway was found at the Harbor History Museum.

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Straying off topic

Due to the shortness of today’s answer and new question, we have room to digress. Our digression concerns embedded links. Gig Harbor Now and Then includes at least one embedded link in every column, referring to the previous column. We sometimes add another link or two as well. Here’s an example of an embedded link. We use them to provide additional information on, or relating to, the subject at hand. They take a couple extra steps to include, but for some inexplicable reason, we somehow think it’s worth the extra time. Website statistics says otherwise, however.

Have you ever wondered how many readers actually click on the embedded links? Speaking only for Gig Harbor Now and Then, and not for any other columns or articles on this site, the number is almost none. About 1 percent. Sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more.

Hardly seems worth it, doesn’t it?

Of course, with almost nobody clicking on the links, they can be used as a clandestine means to communicate with a select few. That would leave 99% of readers oblivious to the confidential messages at the end of the embedded links. We could have our own little secret club. The 99-percenters can wonder what we’re saying ’til the cows come home, but they’ll never know.

(That page on my website is an inside joke I put together years ago on the BDI, which is the Baltic Dry Index, a shipping rate indicator for dry bulk-hauling ocean freighters [zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…]. I think it’s sufficiently stand-alone goofy for this application. The COWZ and MOO charts are real, and they automatically update every day.)

They’ll also never know why some cows will never come home.

Another store location

We now continue the theme of “where was that store located?” This week we focus on one that’s still in business.

Gig Harbor’s Safeway store is currently at the rear of the Point Fosdick Square shopping center on Point Fosdick Drive

Safeway has been in Gig Harbor for many years, but the current Safeway store at Point Fosdick Square is not its original Gig Harbor location.

Question: Where was Safeway’s original location in Gig Harbor?

This week’s question has been carefully crafted to elicit more responses on the Gig Harbor Now Facebook page than previous attempts. In the first six months of this column, there has been a dismal cumulative total of six or so guesses at answers to the many questions posed. This week’s question is going to change that for the better … right?

This week also comes with a bonus Safeway question. It’s probably more difficult than the featured one, but the answer is interesting in its own way.

Bonus question: What was Safeway’s advertising slogan when it was at its original Gig Harbor location?

We’ll have the answers to the two Safeway questions on January 1, 2024. As always, you’re free to ignore our invitation to visit the Gig Harbor Now Facebook page and post your guess on one or more of this week’s questions.

But this week is different. This time you’re confident you know where Safeway’s original Gig Harbor store was. We can tell just by the way you read the question. That aha! moment flashed across your face. Why not share your answer with other Gig Harbor Now and Then readers who might not have a guess of their own?

Remember, the question’s been carefully shaped, pruned, honed, and polished, specifically to draw responses, including yours. How many? Well, quite frankly, an avalanche is what we’re expecting. Yes, at least three. Maybe even four or five.

But not six. That’s just crazy talk.

Greg Spadoni of Olalla has had more access to local history than most life-long residents. During 25 years in road construction working for the Spadoni Brothers, his first cousins, twice removed, he traveled to every corner of the Gig Harbor and Key Peninsulas, taking note of many abandoned buildings, overgrown farms, and roads that no longer had a destination. Through his current association with the Harbor History Museum in Gig Harbor as the unofficial Chief (and only) Assistant to Linda McCowen, the Museum’s primary photo archive volunteer, he regularly studies the area’s largest collection of visual history. Combined with the print history available at the Museum and online, he has uncovered countless stories of long-forgotten local people and events.