"Name-Brand Recognition"

The now-defunct Village Inn shopping center in Soldotna featured a number of local businesses, including Marvene's Dress Shop.

NAME-BRAND RECOGNITION

AUGUST 2011

Part One

The name Dalton W. Buchanan may ring few bells of memory. Ditto for Buchanan’s nickname, “Penrod.” But many Soldotna old-timers likely remember his store, which featured a shortened form of the nickname: Penn’s Hardware.



“Penrod,” according to his friend and longtime Soldotna resident Al Hershberger, was Buchanan’s childhood moniker, and in Alaska that was the name he was known by until it was later truncated in the same way that Jennifer might become “Jen.”  When Buchanon started his own hardware business, he decided that familiarity would be helpful in giving his place an identity.

Hershberger sold Penn a bit of the land that he had purchased from Howard Binkley (for whom Binkley Street is named), and for many years Penn’s Hardware stood next to Hershberger’s radio/television repair store. Later, Penn built a new store next to the old one, and sold the old building to Edwin Back, who opened Ed’s Appliance Service there.

Penn wasn’t the first to lend his own name to a business on the central peninsula, and he certainly wasn’t the last. The existence of some of these eponymous establishments was so transitory that even avid area historians can recall few details about them; other such businesses, however, lasted for decades and firmly entrenched themselves in the legacies of their communities.

Dalton W. "Penrod" Buchanon.

Here are a few of both types—the short-lived and the enduring—with a few details, when possible. All of these listed businesses are gone now, some because they were never meant to be, some because their owners passed or moved away, and some because of unfortunate economics or myriad other reasons:

Andy’s Flying Service­­—Harold R. “Andy” Anderson came to Alaska from Washington in 1950 and homesteaded in 1952. After partnering with Sterling-area guides, Bing Brown and Ray McNutt, Anderson began his own Kenai-based flying-and-guiding service.

Elsie’s Laundry—Elsie E. Consiel was the wife of John “Kenai Joe” Consiel, who first came to Alaska in 1915. Elsie and John married in 1947, and Elsie ran her laundry service near John’s bar and boarding house near the Kenai bluff.

Ken’s Watch Repair—Ken Thomas ran this business in Kenai. A small notice advertising his services appeared in the pages of the Cheechako News in the early 1960s, and his business is listed in the yellow pages of the 1962 Kenai Peninsula telephone directory.

George’s Coffee Shop—George W. Robinson, who came to Alaska from California in 1959, failed to make a go of several local businesses. One of these short-lived ventures was his coffee shop next to Kenai Pharmacy in Kenai. Robinson’s eatery gained brief notoriety in early 1962 when burglars broke in so they could use coffee shop to gain access to the pharmacy.

Vera’s Variety Store—Vera’s was a Soldotna store with real staying power. Vera Howarth began her store in 1958 by selling items out of the trunk of her car until she could afford a real place. In Once upon the Kenai, she wrote: “I had accumulated my store by knocking on doors (which were sometimes miles apart) and going into Kenai. No one knows how cold those days were. I had to use a coal-oil lantern in the car to keep the frost out while I displayed my Alaska Native Products.” By the early 1980s, she finally began to consider selling her business, and it was purchased sometime later by the Johnson Brothers guiding service.

Stan’s Cab Company—Stanley D. Wolfe, a veteran of the Aleutian Campaign and part of the invasion of one of the Japanese-held islands during World War II, established his Kenai-based taxi service sometime after Chuck Brady and Morris Porter began Red’s Cab in the 1950s.

Plumley Mill—George Plumley, who spent nearly all his working life in sawmills and in the woods, came to Alaska from Wisconsin in 1941. When he learned that he would be able to purchase timber from Bill Roark, he set up a sawmill operation in North Kenai.

Glady’s Donut Shoppe—Glady Weaver, wife of Jack Weaver, came to Alaska in 1951 and established her donut shop in Ridgeway in the late 1950s. Although the shop has been closed for many decades, Glady’s daughter, Sharon Isaak, still has many of the donut-making supplies and machines that once produced all those goodies.

Archer’s Meat & Grocery—This Kenai store, which stood across the street from the Rig Bar & Café on Main Street, was run by Fay and Charles Archer, who came to the peninsula in 1948.

Nestor Concrete Products—As many other early settlers in Soldotna had done, Paul and Jane Nestor bought property for their place of business from Howard Binkley. Originally from New York, the Nestors moved to Alaska in 1940, and Paul began working for the Alaska Road Commission in 1945. In Soldotna, they started with a sawmill and a planing mill but moved on to the production of concrete blocks. The block plant ran from 1948 to 1967, when the Nestors sold out to the Davis family, who gave the business a new family-based name: Davis Block.

Marvene’s Dress Shop—An advertisement in the 1962 Kenai Peninsula telephone directory touts Marvene Sundby’s clothing store as “First in Fashion,” and ads running in newspapers in the late 1960s proclaimed that Marvene had “fashions to stop the U.S. Male.” Ensconced in the Village Inn Shopping Center in Soldotna (near the current location of Midas), Marvene’s Dress Shop opened in 1961 when the shopping center itself opened. In 1968, Sundby, who had come to Alaska from California in 1949 and worked as a cook in Seward until 1961, pulled up stakes in Soldotna and moved her wares to the old National Bank of Alaska building on the corner of Main Street and the Spur Highway in Kenai.

Luke’s Welding Service—Now known as Morgan Steel, Luke’s Welding was begun along the Spur Highway by Lucien “Luke” Caro, who brought his ironworking and welding skills to his new business. Caro, who came to Alaska in 1947 and started a mink farm in Kasilof in 1948, got married in 1957 to Virginia, who had come to Alaska as a young girl in 1935 when her father was working in Nome. Sometime later, Luke partnered with Robert S. Oehler to construct the asbestos-plagued Kenai Professional Building in Kenai.

Gibbs Apparel—Virginia J. Gibbs opened her clothing store on a piece of central-Soldotna property she purchased from Jack and Dolly Farnsworth. The log-construction store sat atop a concrete-block basement foundation near the intersection of the Sterling Highway and the Kenai Spur.

Mullin Electric—M.L. “Moon” Mullin (father of Soldotna studio photographer, Roy Mullin) came to Alaska from Texas in 1960 and created a long-lasting electric company in Kenai.



Reger's Garage in Soldotna, circa 1960s.

Hartley’s Department Store—Longtime Alaskans probably remember television and radio advertisements, starting in the late 1960s, for Hartley Motors in Anchorage. The founder of that business, Jim Hartley, was born in Anchorage and moved to Kenai in 1941 to work at the Civil Aeronautical Administration station there, and later created his Kenai department store.



Wilson’s Store—Don and Verona Wilson opened the first real grocery store in Soldotna in the early 1950s. When they moved next door into a newer concrete-block grocery, they leased their old building to Vera (Franklin) Howarth, who turned it into Vera’s Variety.

Reger’s Garage—Harry and Maxine Reger moved from Chico, Calif., to Alaska in 1952. After settling in Soldotna, Harry purchased a filling station and auto-repair garage from Burton Carver, and then added his surname to the sign out front. According to Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula: The Road We’ve Traveled, the garage was originally constructed in the summer of 1951 and was one of the first two businesses created in Soldotna. John Ingram purchased the business in 1967, and the place burned to the ground in 1978.

Part Two

One of the most famous “name establishments” on the central Kenai Peninsula was not originally known by the name of its owner. The Last Frontier Dine & Dance Club, which opened its doors in North Kenai in May 1952, remained in operation for more than three decades but was rarely called anything but “Eadie’s,” for its owner and main hostess, the colorful and occasionally controversial Eadie Sutton.

Even the briefest glimpse into her history reveals how her fiercely independent spirit and the toughness of her character made her first name more recognizable than the actual title of her club.

Eadie making friends at Kenai Joe's bar.

Born on April 18, 1926, to a Russian-Jewish mother and a Greek father, Eitha Chenlikas ran away at age 13 from a hardscrabble Depression-era home in Youngstown, Ohio, but she didn’t run far. At age 14 she created her stage name of Eadie Sutton and got her first job, dancing striptease, in a Youngstown burlesque club.

Over the next few years, Sutton parlayed this “career” into a series of opportunities. Married briefly at age 15, she traveled to and danced in Florida, Panama, Los Angeles, and finally north to Alaska.

In 1946, at the age of 20, she arrived in Anchorage and immediately secured a dancing gig. She entertained in Anchorage clubs, then in Fairbanks and back in Anchorage, when she heard that a military base was going to be constructed near the fishing village of Kenai, so she moved there and paid $8,500 for a 300-by-400-foot lot near the entrance of what would become Wildwood Station.

In the years that followed, she and the Last Frontier Dine & Dance Club—called Eadie’s Frontier Club in newspaper ads of the late 1960s—benefited from the money and men rife in an area that became known for its salmon, soldiers, and oilfield workers.

Although her two-story business (strip joint and bar downstairs, hotel upstairs) was often decried as a brothel, Sutton was defiant: “They still haven’t proven anything when it comes down to it,” she said in a 1986 interview. “I’m not admitting it; all I’m saying is that people have had a good time here and enjoyed themselves immensely. People may have come in as strangers, but they always left as friends.”

Beyond her first brief marriage, Sutton wed at least three more times, becoming Eadie Randall, Eadie Zummert and Eadie Henderson, but, despite the sign out by the highway, her place of business never stopped being just “Eadie’s.”

Eadie died in January 2000, and the building that for so long housed her club is now home to a church.

Derk’s Trading Post—In 1961, Alfred and Gwen Derkevorkian bought a small piece of Jack and Dolly Farnsworth’s Soldotna homestead, intending to create a store from which to sell general merchandise. Constructed by “Shorty” Harris, Dave Thomas and Dave Goodrich, Derk’s Trading Post took shape as a green-painted one-story establishment. Later, a two-story addition was built in back, and today this structure houses the Salvation Army. Eventually, the Derkevorkians sold the business to another family, and Alfred began a new enterprise in Ridgeway, Derk’s Ski-Doo.

Paul’s Bookkeeping Service—Paul H. Sparks owned and operated this business in Kenai.

Tyler Novelty Company—Lured northward by a magazine story he’d read, Leo Tyler moved to Alaska from Phoenix, Arizona, in 1936, and made his way to Kenai in 1956. With his novelty company, Tyler specialized in coin-operated machines, such as jukeboxes.

The Bear Den-- In 1949, Joe Faa wanted to build a bar. Like many other Soldotnans, he approached homesteader 

Howard Binkley, who readily sold him the land he desired. Faa and his wife, Mickey, were out of the bar business by the early 1950s, however, selling out to Emmett Karsten and Chell Bear, who had moved his wife, Maxine, and their four children into the area in 1949 while he worked for the Alaska Road Commission. Karsten and Bear together formed the B & K Bar, but in 1952, Karsten sold his share of the bar to the Bears, and when Chell and Maxine became sole proprietors they changed the name of the business to the Bear Den—a name that would last for more than 30 years.

Lee’s Gardens—Lee Myrick was convinced by her husband, Walt, in 1952 to move from Maine to Alaska. In 1955, a year after Walt injured his back working on the docks in Seward, the Myricks moved to Kenai, where he was offered a job at Wildwood Station. By the 1960s, Lee was operating her plant nursery in North Kenai and continued running it for more than two decades.

Mac’s Flying Service and McGrady’s Radio & TV—The McGrady brothers, Harold and Tru, came to Alaska from New Mexico five years apart, and both settled in Kenai. Harold arrived in Alaska in 1952 with the intention of homesteading, and by the early 1960s he was operating his own flying service. Tru, meanwhile, came north in 1955 purely for adventure and then stayed, eventually starting a radio-and-television business in Kenai.

Leroy’s Roofing—For years, Soldotna-based contractor “Leroy the Roofer” Knab was known more by his occupation than his surname. Knab was described by many as standing about 5-foot-4, appearing nearly as wide as he was tall, and always being seen with three things: a fat stogie around which he carried on conversations, a wide-brimmed red hat with a large golden safety pin in the front, and an English bull dog that could climb a ladder and bore an eerie resemblance to Knab himself.

Lou’s Market—It started out as A&D Mercantile (for Andy & Dorothy Anderson) and was located in Soldotna across the Kenai Spur Highway from the Soldotna Theatre (the present site of Beemun’s). The Andersons, who had had a grocery store previously in Anchorage, sold the business in the early 1960s to some Anchorage grocers who renamed it Lou’s Market after their store (“Home of Lou Famous Polish Sausage”) in Anchorage. In the 1962 Kenai Peninsula telephone directory’s yellow pages, the short-lived Soldotna business advertised: “Homesteader’s Orders Gladly Filled.”

Peg & Roy’s Laundry—The name has changed since the early 1960s, but there is still a laundry service at this site, north of Kenai just before the turn-off to Wildwood.

Knoblock’s Cottage Bakery—Long-time Kenai-area resident Peggy Arness remembers that her father, U.S. Marshal Allan Petersen, loved the fresh rolls at Ray D. Knoblock’s bakery, located across the street from the original Kenai Commercial store in Old Town Kenai.

Dorothea’s Beauty Salon—Dorothea Willard started her business in what was sometimes called the Mullen Building at the Y in Soldotna. She later moved her salon into her home on Knight Drive.

Smoky’s Garage—Wayne E. Tum Suden operated this maintenance-and-repair shop in Kenai.

Oberts Insurance Agency—Leo T. Oberts moved to Alaska in 1952 and worked on the construction of Wildwood Station north of Kenai. In 1954, Leo’s fiancé, Marion, joined him in Alaska, and, according to Leo’s obituary, they were married “in the makeshift church set up in Louisa Miller’s Ice Cream Parlor.” They started their insurance agency in 1955 and turned it into one of the longest continually operating businesses in Kenai.

Casey’s Grocery—H.C. “Casey” Jones and his wife, Frost, ran this small Kenai grocery store across the street from Kenai Joe’s bar. In Snapshots at Statehood, Virginia Poore recalled the time that she and her husband, Al, were worried that their infant daughter, Debbie, wasn’t gaining weight properly, so they traveled to the store and weighed her on the Joneses’ produce scale.

Seaman’s Furniture—Carl and Elsie Seaman homesteaded in North Kenai  after coming from San Diego to Alaska in the early 1950s. In Once upon the Kenai, Carl said that he was enticed by a magazine article to come to Alaska and make a fortune. But getting rich was more difficult than he’d anticipated. After the Seaman home burned down in 1959, he wrote, he and Elsie were surprised to discover how difficult it was to buy replacement furniture, either new or used, so they “scrounged” enough capital together to build the first section (48-by-48 feet) of their own furniture store on the corner of Willow Street and the Kenai Spur Highway. The store opened in 1960, and to commemorate the occasion (and the upgrade in area furniture), Elsie penned a brief poem entitled “Ode to an Abandoned Blazo Box.”

Don Wilson feeds a hungry young moose during the winter from the door of his Soldotna store.