Then and Now: Division and Spokane Falls Boulevard

Apr. 7—Preparation for Expo '74 led to clearing many aging commercial buildings from the Spokane River corridor. But some buildings from Spokane's early businesses survived after the fair.

Three buildings on the northeast corner of Spokane Falls Boulevard and Division Street represented some of the region's most important early businesses.

The westernmost building was the home of the F.O. Berg Company, a tent and awning maker. Frederick Oliver Berg was born in Minnesota and brought his business to Spokane in 1888. He constructed tents for the survivors of the 1889 fire, railroad construction crews and large public gatherings. In 1910, he built a new factory at 318 N. Division St., which served the company until they moved in the late 1980s. Berg died in 1930. The company has continued under various owners, focusing on awnings for commercial buildings and equipment for the military, among other products. The assets of the Berg company were purchased by Vestis Systems in 2013.

Behind the Berg factory was a grocery warehouse at 21 W. Gray Ave., built by grocer Charles Edward Marr, who was born in Missouri in 1880, arriving in Spokane around 1909. Marr knew efficient warehousing and transportation were the key to networking and supplying stores around the region. Through the teens and 1920s, Marr went on to build one of the largest grocery store chains, MacMarr Stores, in the western states before merging it with Safeway stores in 1931. Marr brought 1,400 stores into the Safeway chain, making him a vice president of the massive new grocery chain. Marr also invested heavily in mining, insurance and banking around the region. He died in 1946.

Marr's original warehouse would alternately carry names of the Piggly Wiggly Stores, Pay'nTakit Stores, and Safeway as ownership alliances changed.

The building next east at E. 41 Gray Ave. was the Riverside Warehouse, which has an extensive loading dock arrangement and housed many different businesses over the years.

In the early 1970s, Riverside Warehouse was the local agent for Allied Van Lines moving company, but it also hosted a few dozen other businesses, such as Empire Steel, George Graham Pipe Organ sales, Atomic Chemical, Cannon and Co. food brokers, Pac Bowling and Billiards, John Morrell meat packers, Wiley-Bayley styrofoam, Swan-Finch Oil Corporation, Airkem Sales, Oakite Products cleaning compounds, and Carnation Canned Milk manufacturers. By the late 1980s, the three buildings were empty or completely demolished.