As promised, we finish up the saga of Poier Motors this month with a 1948 image of their new showroom on Second Street– a structure that is still in use but to sell furniture. (A Now image is included in the previous post.)
Poier’s first showroom, at 1105 First Street collapsed into the river sometime in the forties leading the way to the eventual establishment of Kla Ha Ya Park in the sixties when the entire south side of brick storefront buildings between Avenues B and C were demolished.
The gods of historic research were watching over us when pioneer photographer Lee Picket decided on July 18, 1910, to capture the installation of a temporary railroad line down Second Street because he inadvertently captured Lot Wilbur’s home in the background, sitting on the hill that Charles Poier had to remove in order to build his new showroom at grade level with Second.
Lot Wilbur was our famous pioneer druggist who gave up insurance sales to develop “home remedies” that in turn made him rich enough by 1891 to build the second brick building in the county, a handsome structure designed by our own J. S. White and currently home to the American Legion on First Street.
Charles’s son, Art Poier, showed me a series of early Kodak snaps that unfortunately are not up to publication quality, showing various stages of moving Wilbur’s three-story home in three sections that, according to Art, ended up as three homes in a location in town yet to be confirmed.
Lee Picket was based in Index, Washington and he worked from the early 1900s well into the 1940s -- his collection of photographs with the University of Washington Libraries numbers over 900. He was perhaps best known for his job as the official photographer for the Great Northern Railway Company, and a large number of his photographs document the company’s program to improve the line over the Cascades in the 1920s.
I have yet to learn why the Milwaukee Company (as labeled on the image) laid what looks to be a narrow gauge line down Second Street. The January 25, 1910, issue of this paper had a headline on its front page that read, “Milwaukee Surveyors Working Along South Side of First Street Again.” Eventually, the riverside railroad trestle was constructed; and coincidently, when the Milwaukee Road began service in 1912, the company used the old Wilbur building as its depot. Wilbur moved his business uptown, one might say, to First and Union in the storefront that is currently for lease.
I am happy to announce that my thumbnail history of Snohomish has been published on HistoryLink.org.
Published in the Snohomish County Tribune, March 19, 2008.