Many of the shops and buildings in Eatonville have had previous lives. Here are just a few.
Napa: The part store has also been a pool hall, a bowling alley, a bakery and a church. The owner says if you are up in the attic you can see the glass from the church and there are still bakery vats underneath.
PostNet: People have been coming there since it was a bakery, a TV and appliance repair shop, Kneip’s Trucking, and rumor has it a funeral parlor.
Eatonville Outdoor: Not long ago it was an antique shop. For years it was the town’s post office, and very early on it was a jewelry store.
Cruiser Café: If you’d been around in the early 1900s, you would have stopped by to visit Dr. Bridge. He was the resident doctor and also the founder of Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital (named after his mother.)
Fitness Center: Today you work up a sweat in there. In the early 1900s you were more likely to work up a sweat watching swashbuckling Douglas Fairbanks on the screen. It also had a previous life as the Pentecostal Church, Eagles Hall and Eatonville Furniture.
Jebinos: Many of you may remember purchasing cars at the Van Eaton Chevrolet dealership.
Cinderblock building next to Napa: That old cinderblock building used to be the Dispatch headquarters. Much earlier though it was a car dealership and Sid Dow’s body shop.
Home on the Corner of Mashell across from the School: This home was used as a hospital in the early 1900s.
Medical Billing Center: For years people went there for groceries when it was Malcom’s Shop Rite.
Tall Timbers Restaurant: Originally it was built as a garage.
The Pour House: In the early 1900s it was T. C. Van Eaton’s realty office, where he sold lots with easy $5 and $10 a month payments. Later it was a candy store and then the Olympia Tavern.
Sears: In the 1950s you would have called it Christensen’s Motors.
Dawns Floral: In the 1960s there were no flowers to be bought, but you could have set yourself up with a new Dodge.
Double T Meats: Mostly recently it was a pizza parlor, but earlier it was a candy shop and a cleaners.
Countryside Real Estate: Early on the building was two stories. It housed nurses’ quarters and a clinic. A dentist set up shop there as well.
Thank you Pat Van Eaton for setting me straight on a few of these.
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Eatonville To Rainier 