Digital Bob Archive

Mr. and Mrs. B.M. Behrends returned to Juneau late in September 1891 from a three-months vacation trip. He at once rented the Dixon Building on the west side of Seward Street, just below Third Street, and prepared to open \"B.M. Behrends, General Merchandise.\" Although other dates have been mentioned for the opening, Behrends said in an interview in The Daily Alaska Empire in 1931, \"The morning of October 9, 1891, I opened the doors of my store.\" Some years later, after Behrend's death, the store began to advertise \"Since 1887\" but in time that was changed to \"Since 1891.\"

In 1892 one of Juneau's earliest physicians, Dr. H.S. Wyman, was moving south and Behrends purchased his big residence on the southeast corner of Third and Seward Streets and in November moved his store into it. Almost at once he began building additions along Third Street, partly for more store space, partly for rent. The Juneau post office was one renter; Harrison Bros. Photograph Gallery was another. Still another addition in 1895 provided warehouse space for the store with a meeting hall upstairs.

That same year Behrends also expanded down Seward Street. The Bank of Juneau occupied a building adjoining his store and when it moved out, he acquired the building and cut an archway from the store. The office was moved to the former bank building; the men's wear department into the former office space.

The first newspaper advertisement for the B.M. Behrends store appeared in the Juneau City Mining Record on October 15, 1891. It was a small ad at first, but it increased month by month and by 1895 Behrends was the largest advertiser in local newspapers and the only one who consistently ran full page ads.

Even before he opened his own store, Behrends became active in local civic affairs. He served on the Fourth of July Committee, and in March 1891 was elected secretary-treasurer of the newly formed Evergreen Cemetery Committee. In February 1895 he was named secretary of the Juneau Fire Association, the fire department of that time and, in the absence of a city government, one of the most important local organizations.

In March 1895 Behrends opened a branch store in Douglas. That may have been an error in judgment; it had to compete with the retail department of the Treadwell Gold Mining Company, said to have been the largest store in Alaska, as well as with half a dozen Douglas merchants. The Behrends branch seems to have been closed by November 1898 when The Douglas Island News began publication. It may be that Behrends merely moved it to the new Gold Rush town of Skagway when he opened a store there.

Two news items of interest concerning Behrends appeared in local papers in February 1896. One was that he and J.F. Malony, Juneau lawyer, were putting up a business building at Second and Franklin. The other that he had purchased the big safe of the defunct Bank of Juneau. Then, on May 6, 1896, he announced in his regular full-page advertisement in The Alaska Mining Record, that he was now doing a banking business \"for the accommodation of our many customers.\"