A downtown historic district fire 100 years ago made way for one of Juneau’s most enduring downtown businesses: the Ben Franklin store.
After the Heidelberg Saloon on Front Street burned in 1923, grocer Gunnar Blomgren bought the property and built a one-story concrete structure measuring 50 feet of sidewalk frontage by 100 feet for $36,000.
Grocer Gunnar Blomgren displays a large halibut as he stands in front of his Sanitary Grocery delivery truck on Front Street. Photo by Ordway, possibly in 1933. (Courtesy Photo /Gunnar Blomgren Family Collection)
Blomgren opened the Sanitary Grocery after moving his market business from Seward Street to Front Street. In 1931, for $20,000, Blomgren added a second story. The building facade looks the same today.
Gunnar Blomgren’s Sanitary Grocery on Front Street shortly after the second floor addition was opened in 1931. The single story concrete structure was first built in 1924. (Courtesy Photo /Gunnar Blomgren Family Collection)
For more than 50 years, the Wiley family has owned the Ben Franklin store in the Blomgren Building on Front Street. The legacy continues as third generation Meagan Wiley Bishop works with her dad, Mike Wiley, on the day-to-day operation of the variety store that sells home products like kitchenware and sewing notions, as well as souvenirs, picture framing elements, plus aerial drones and radio controlled airplanes.
Mike’s parents, Fred and Sally Wiley — who still live in Juneau — purchased the store in 1972 from Bud Nance, who coached them on store operations and provided a rustic cabin at Indian Cove for the couple to raise their four children. Fred had managed a Woolworth’s store in Anchorage. When the company wanted to relocate him to California, he resigned and instead moved his family to Juneau to take over the Ben Franklin store.
William “Bud” Nance had a long history in Juneau, too. He started the S and N Five and Ten Cent Store with his partner, Robert Stoft in 1937.
Like many businesses in Juneau, the Wileys are rooted in the community.
Four generations of the Wiley family pose before the Front Street business the family has owned for fifty years in the historic Blomgren Building. Sally and Fred Wiley, seated, took over the Ben Franklin Store in 1972. Shannon and Mike Wiley stand with Stephen Bishop and Meagan Wiley Bishop and young Nolan Bishop. Today Mike and his daughter Meagan operate the store together. (Michael Penn / For Downtown Business Association)
Ben Franklin is a stable longtime presence in the Downtown Historic District. For many reasons, downtown Juneau is fortunate to survive and thrive amid changing economic conditions.
The City and Borough of Juneau designated several blocks of the commercial area as Juneau’s Downtown Historic District with the approval of the National Register of Historic Places.
• Laurie Craig is an artist, advocate and avid researcher of Juneau’s historical treasures. Rooted in Community is a series of short articles, published in the Empire on the third weekend of each month, focusing on unique buildings in Juneau’s Downtown Historic District and the present-day businesses (and people) that occupy them. This work is supported by the Downtown Business Association.
