The olden days

Originally published Saturday, November 16, 1996

By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

When Seattle all but burned down in the great fire of 1889, Ballard's sawmills helped rebuild the city. For years, it was the No. 1 producer of wood shingles in the world, earning it the nickname "Shingle Town USA." In those days Ballard was a rough and tumble town. Factory whistles signaled the start and end of the day. Men would head home, stopping along Market Street to buy supper or hoist a beer in one of Ballard's many saloons.

One story has it that for every liquor license granted in Ballard, a church had to be built. It sounds fanciful, but consider that in 1907 Ballard had 23 liquor licenses and 22 churches, according to amateur historian Susan Cook.

Bob Jones and his three brothers are semi-retired now, but they remember working after school in their dad's meat shop, sweeping sawdust and cleaning butcher blocks.

Life was hard then but nothing like it was in the "old country" of Sweden, Jones says, where cod was dried like kindling for winter meals.

At Christmas, lye was used to soften the fish sticks. "Christmas in a Scandinavian home is not Christmas unless you smell lutefisk all over the home," Jones said.

Jones Bros. Meats still has a shop on 22nd Avenue Northwest. It's run by Bob's nephew, Jim Jones, who says Ballard is changing mostly for the better.

"We used to have a lot of run-down bars along Market Street that caused problems," Jim said. "But now you have coffee shops every 20 feet."

True enough. Starbucks set up shop years ago, to be joined recently by Seattle's Best Coffee and Tully's. And their arrival has some residents fearing for the future of small, independent cafes that give Ballard character.

Adrianna van Elswijk is owner of Dutch Treat, a bakery specializing in soups, sandwiches and confections. The big three coffee stores, she said, "are the death of a community in terms of economic development. . . . I live here. And I hire people who live here, who are concerned about the community and are working to make it better." Thanks to what she calls "backlash clientele," van Elswijk said, her business has improved. "I have customers who said they wanted to make an extra point of coming in to show support of the individually owned places."