Digital Bob Archive

Bernard Meeno Behrends, 25, an emigrant from Germany, first set foot in Juneau on Friday, May 20, 1887, when he stepped ashore from the steamer Olympian. He had come to the United States in 1878, spent some time in Nebraska, then moved to California where he learned the merchandising business. He was managing a store in Bakersfield when he was bitten by the prospecting bug and decided to try Alaska. Juneau was buzzing that spring with news of the gold strike on Fortymile Creek in the Yukon drainage, and Behrends was also told of the potentials at Berners Bay. He decided, however, to look into the possibilities at Silver Bay, near Sitka.

At Sitka, John G. Brady, manager and part owner of the Sitka Trading Company, was planning to go to Pennsylvania in October to be married and needed a man to run the store. He soon persuaded young Behrends to sign on as clerk and bookkeeper and to learn the intricacies of fur trading with the Tlingits. In addition, Brady offered to make him manager of the company's Juneau branch after a few months. In response to that offer, Behrends arrived in Juneau for the second time on December 17, 1887, and immediately took over the management of the Sitka Trading Company store.

The store was on what was then the waterfront, where Lyle's Hardware is today. Other general merchandise stores carrying ads in the local papers at that time included Wheelock & Flannery, Koehler & James, W.F. Reed, David Martin, Decker Bros., Mrs. B. Levy, A. Goldstein & Co., and Nelson Bros. There may have been others that did not advertise. The business was competitive. Most of the stores offered delivery service - \"by wheelbarrow or canoe\" said Decker Bros. - and many of them offered safety deposit for valuables, including gold dust and nuggets, in the store safe. Behrends also offered that service, both then and later in his own store.

The Sitka Trading Company had an advantage over other stores in that Brady owned the steam schooner Leo which supplied both stores from Puget Sound at a cost considerably below the rates charged by the monthly mail steamer. The store had its own wharf.

Behrends made an occasional visit to Sitka and in the spring of 1889 he built a residence here in Juneau on Fifth Street, west of Main. In Sitka on October 25, 1889, he married Miss Margaret Virginia Pakle (Virginia Margaret in some records, Jennie in others). The Rev. Dr. Sheldon Jackson performed the ceremony. Miss Pakle had come north in 1886 as a teacher at the Presbyterian Mission in Sitka and later taught Sitka Public School No. 2 for Native children. A daughter, Beatrice Margaret, was born to the Behrends in 1891.

By 1891 changes were afoot. Brady, who had built a sawmill at Sitka in 1889, decided to quit the merchandise business and devote his entire attention to the mill. Behrends turned down a chance to buy the Juneau store, perhaps because of its waterfront location. It stood on pilings which were vulnerable to the many icebergs that drifted around the channel and often damaged property.

When the Sitka Trading Company closed its doors in June 1891 Mr. and Mrs. Behrends left on a three-month vacation trip.