People's Dock

People's Dock. . , The People's Dock was established near here about 1890. At the time, it was one of three docks in the harbor servicing freight and passenger traffic on steamboats. In 1923, the People's Dock became the community's car ferry dock. It served automobile traffic until 1928 when a ferry landing was built at the end of Harborview Drive outside the bay., Much of the community's social life centered around the arrival and departure of the local steamers. People gathered at the landing when the steamer was due to pick up mail and provisions and to gossip with neighbors. Steamboats brought entertainers from the east and took local residents on picnics and other pleasant excursions., Axel Uddenberg, an immigrant from Sweden, built the West Side Grocery next to the People's Dock in 1911. Axel had learned the importance of location and had already established a general mercantile next to the dock on the north end of the harbor. His 16-year-old son, Bert, managed the West Side Grocery and then bought it from Axel in 1917. The grocery eventually became a restaurant and tavern., [Photo captions, top to bottom, read] , . West Side Grocery and Wharf, mid 1910s, . Inside West Side Grocery, mid-1910s, . People's Dock and West Side Grocery, the steamer Atalanta at dock, mid 1910s