Digital Bob Archive

The Northwest Trading Company was probably not the first to open a store in the new camp that became Juneau. That honor may belong to Pierre Joseph \"French Pete\" Erussard who was trading among the Indian villages with a little sloop when he learned of Harris-Juneau gold discovery. He landed here on December 3, 1880, staked a lot at what is now Front and Seward Streets, put up a cabin and moved his trade goods into it. But his stock ran heavily to calico, mirrors, beads, molasses and what were described as \"Indian sundries.\"

The Northwest Trading Company had far greater resources. It had been organized at Portland, Oregon, in March 1880 by John M. Vanderbilt, a Wrangell merchant; Paul Schulze of Portland; and a few other men. The company had purchased the small steamboat Favorite and established trading posts at Sitka, Killisnoo, Howkan, Hoonah and Pyramid Harbor. When the company learned of the new camp on Gastineau Channel, it rustled up a scow, built a house on it, filled the house with merchandise and towed it to what was then known as Harrisburgh.

The scow, in charge of Edward deGroff, who had been working for the company at Sitka and Killisnoo, was beached here in March 1881. On June 6 deGroff became the camp's first postmaster. On April 26, 1881, the Northwest Trading Company bought from Patrick McGlinchy for $350 Lot 5 in Block 2, on the corner of Second and Seward Streets, where the Goldstein Building now stands.

There was a 20 by 30-foot log cabin on the lot and the store was moved into it. The picture of that store, on the opposite page, was taken by H.H. Brodeck in June or perhaps early July 1881.

Just when the log cabin was replaced by a frame building is not known, but a picture of Juneau dated 1885 shows a frame building on that corner with the letters N W T Co. painted on its roof. It was just about then that the Northwest Trading Company went bankrupt and out of business, a result of too much expansion. It had gone into the fish meal and oil business at Killisnoo, and that was fairly successful, but it also went into the salmon canning business at Pyramid Harbor, at the mouth of the Chilkat River, and that appears to have been its downfall.

The cannery was started in 1883 and made a pack of 3800 cases that year and 6000 the following year. It was closed in 1885 and was sold a year or two later. Some of the trading posts were also closed and the Sitka store was sold to Vanderbilt and de Groff. The Killisnoo plant was taken over by a new firm which continued the operation.

The Juneau store was taken over by two company employees, Karl Koehler and Edmund H. James who operated it as Koehler & James until 1899. It then became Kaufman Bros. and in 1902 the property was sold to Henry Shattuck. When Kaufman Bros. went out of business, Charles Goldstein moved his store there from Second and Franklin and eventually purchased the property, and in 1914 tore down the old building and replaced it with the five-story concrete building he opened as the Goldstein Emporium.