From Automobiles to… Action!

The building at the corner of First and West Streets – SJ Museum photo

It’s time for the November edition of the SJ Historical Museum’s history column…

This weekend’s Friday Harbor Film Festival has its office all abuzz with action, so we offer a bit of history about its building at the corner of First and West Streets.

Pictured here is a charming but undated photo from a much earlier time, when these four unidentified citizens posed in their finery at the corner door entrance of what was then the island’s first automobile dealership. The dress styles we see are hints that it could have been 1916, the year painted above the door today. Other more general clues are the wooden plank sidewalk and the model of the car, partially visible in the scene.

We do know that A. J. Paxson opened this building in 1906 to house his Overland and Studebaker showroom, in combination with an adjacent garage owned by Calvin Lightheart and George Franck. The Boede Cement Company provided the cement construction “bricks” made in a building we know today as Brickworks on Nichols Street.

In time, Paxon’s showroom was taken over by George Franck and John L. Murray for a Ford dealership. Perhaps it was then that extensive remodeling was done, including the addition of several second story windows and the painted numbers denoting the year 1916. The most recent improvement to the building has been the return, just this year, of its corner door as seen in the present day photo. For many decades, a window had anchored the corner position.

When you walk or drive by this building, now home to the Friday Harbor Film Festival and its neighbor The Toy Box, remember a time of wooden sidewalks when the excitement was all about automobiles.

You can support the San Juan Update by doing business with our loyal advertisers, and by making a one-time contribution or a recurring donation.