Ohashi's

Ohashi's. , Around 1900, adventurous Japanese pioneer George Ohashi came to Ketchikan and opened the New York Café on Front Street. This was the beginning of a three-generation Ohashi family career of entrepreneurial activities., In 1907, Ohashi built this building with its small, unimposing storefront masking a long structure that steps back to a boardinghouse and orchard. He opened Ohashi's Grocery and, for the next 30 years, it was the family business, serving Filipinos, Japanese, Native Alaskans and other residents of “Indian Town,” as well as fishermen, cannery hands, and mill workers., During Prohibition, Ohashi operated a card room and pool hall in the back of the store. In 1936, Ohashi's son Buck closed the grocery and replaced it with the Welexum Bar. A few years later, he made another change, dividing the street-front space between a package liquor store and an ice cream bar/confectionery, both operated by the family., In 1942, all Japanese families in Ketchikan, including the Ohashis, were sent to internment camps for the duration of World War II. When they returned, they took up their business as before. After Buck died in 1979, his wife Komatsu operated the confectionery with the help of family members until the mid-1990s., Captions (top to bottom) , . Ohashi's grocery store, pool room, and lodging house, 1930s. , . Hope, Neil and Mama Ohashi in 1994. Hall Anderson/Ketchikan Daily News , . Ohashi family, 1924. George and his wife Mary are surrounded by children Inga, Buck, Louise and Ruth.