While I was researching the 100-year history of the Edmonds Bakery, I became aware of the existence of at least one other bakery in the early days of Edmonds. Given that the official census for Edmonds in 1910 was 1,146 and only 936 in 1920, I wondered how the bakery owners competed or positioned themselves in this small community.
Part of the dilemma:
- The average household was comprised of six people or more. As a result there were less than 200 households in the area.
- Many families baked their own bread and baked goods at home on wood-burning stoves.
- Advertising did not exist via radio, television, Yellow Page advertising or roadside billboards.
- The primary means of transportation was horse-drawn wagons, and the muddy, horse manure-filled roads were difficult to transverse during the late fall and winter months.
Besides word-of-mouth it seemed the only reliable means of spreading the word of one’s offerings was in the four-page weekly newspaper, The Edmonds Tribune Review. Given that fact, I went digging in the archives to see what articles or ads I could find.
I thought that the early ads and articles might not only tell me about the bakeries’ offerings and positioning, but also provide me with some insights into what was happening in Edmonds from the earliest known bakery through the early 1920s.
The Vienna Bakery & Confectionary (1912 – 1915)
The earliest mention of a bakery that I could find was in Ray Cloud’s, Edmonds: The Gem Of Puget Sound. Cloud stated that in September 1912, C.L. Mathews sold the Vienna Bakery to D.P. Bergsma. I couldn’t find an article documenting that transaction, but I was able to find what appears to be the first advertisement in The Edmonds Tribune Review of the Vienna Bakery in the spring of 1913.
The two advertisements above were in The Edmonds Tribune Review during D.P. Bergsma’s tenure. The left ran every week, whereas the ad at the right only appeared once.
The bakery was subsequently sold back to C.L. Mathews at the end of 1914 and sold again in 1915 to William Dawson. During this period, The Vienna Bakery appears to have been the only “game” in town, and they didn’t advertise during the early WWI years of 1914 and 1915.
The Danish American Bakery Arrives On The Scene: Late 1915
In late 1915, Fred Sticker opened the Danish American Bakery with much fanfare. He immediately began to advertise, with ever-changing weekly ads. These are examples of some of his early ads.
Throughout these early advertisements, the Danish-American Bakery’s tagline of “The Home Of Good Baking” was always present. Surprisingly the Vienna Bakery didn’t place any competing advertisements at the onset of the Danish-American Bakery.
Then in the Jan. 12, 1916 edition of The Edmonds Tribune Review there was an article outlining the fact that the Danish American Bakery had been awarded a certificate for cleanliness.
Once the article was published, the tone of the Danish American Bakery’s advertisements changed to ones highlighting cleanliness.
Not to be outdone, the Vienna Bakery came back into the advertising fray, also emphaizing their cleanliness, and purity.
The two bakeries also competed by placing ads for seasonal specials. Here are a couple of examples. Note: In the Vienna Bakery Hallowe’en ad, there is a mention for the first time of competing products in or from Seattle.
I’m not sure how successful the Vienna Bakery’s Thanksgiving ad was, given that the lower portion of the ad was printed upside down. However it might have drawn a lot of attention from the citizenry, and created extra business for the Vienna Bakery. Sadly two weeks after the Thanksgiving advertisement ran, the Vienna Bakery was destroyed by a fire in December of 1916, and never reopened.
World War I Effects
In the later WWI years, (i.e. 1917, 1918 and early 1919) the gist of the Danish American Bakery’s ads changed. The banner “Our Nation” was used as a lead-in to a series of ads. Ads stated that bread built strong bodies and was a healthy food to eat.
The Danish American Bakery ran ads for multiple weeks trying to justify why the bakery had to raise prices, and that the price of ingredients was forcing them to discontinue smaller loaves of bread.
New competitors
Toward the middle of 1919 with WWI coming to an end, a new type of competitor arose. The availability of cheap flour, which could be purchased by families, and used at home to bake their own bread and pastry, was a new threat for any baker.
Flour mills began large ad campaigns urging consumers to purchase flour at the local grocery.
The United States Grain Commission, which had been stockpiling flour for the war effort, also offered flour at reduced pricing directly to the consumer as well as to businesses.
Also with improved roads, and the emergence of affordable automobiles, people were traveling more. Advertisements started to appear in The Edmonds Tribune Review by bakeries in Seattle.
Community challenges
As the war drew to a close, issues within the Edmonds community apparently began to surface.
A front-page article titled “Edmonds Men Paving Road For City’s Future” appeared in the Oct. 17, 1919 edition of The Edmonds Tribune Review. Although the title seems positive, the article details an apparent undertone of anger and disrespect.
To quote the article: “A splendid spirit is now being shown by the business men and others in Edmonds in the way of a get-acquainted system. From the start the matter seems to be meeting with success, and it is believed that ere long the business men in Edmonds will be calling each other brother, instead of being termed competitor and treated with contempt.
All the people in a small town should in a way be more or less sociable towards each other. Every town or village is just what the people make it. To be prejudiced, jealous and unfriendly will never make a town prosperous…because one business man is afraid a neighbor will get a dollar more than he does.”
Furthermore, a January 1920 article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer stated that rising factions within Edmonds brought the potential of great wealth, but also strong differences of opinion. The article documented that some citizens wanted Edmonds to be an industrial hub with its mills, factories and commercial businesses. Others desired Edmonds to be primarily a transportation hub, halfway between Seattle and Everett. Yet others wanted Edmonds to be largely an agricultural and farming community raising berries, fruits, poultry and supporting the dairy industry. The article further pointed out that these competing interests were driving up the cost of land in Edmonds at a faster rate than in other communities in Snohomish County.
How well the proposed changes in attitude and tolerance for other people’s interests were adopted can be seen to some degree in the bakery’s advertisements from 1920 into 1921. In early 1920, Fred Sticker sold the bakery to Mr. & Mrs. G.G. Eversen, who renamed the bakery, the American Bakery.
During the Eversen’s ownership these are some of the advertisements they ran urging the citizens to come together to support local businesses, and to have a sense of community.
The Eversens ran the “Think It Over” ad for eight weeks. Seemingly frustrated, they sold the bakery back to Fred Sticker who named it the Danish American Bakery once again.
After buying the bakery back, Fred Sticker appears to have wanted to avoid any controversy, and ran a simple weekly advertisement touting the bakery’s “Sweetheart Bread” through 1921.
Despite the changing focuses or issues of the day, maybe surprisingly the bakeries’ competitive advertising was mostly centered on their breads….a universal staple food then and now.
The original article on the 100-year history of the Edmonds Bakery can be found here.
— By Byron Wilkes”
Research assistance was provided by the Sno-Isle Genealogy Society and the Edmonds Historical Museum.
I found the article on the two bakeries in Edmonds very interesting and informative. So glad that Edmonds can still support a bakery in this economy. I still find myself stopping in at the Edmonds Bakery from time to time to see if there is a pastry that I must purchase to eat on the way home. I wonder what the costs were to run an ad over 100 years ago compared to today’s costs which are still considerably low compared to other newspapers.
Thank you, Byron, for your intensive research and enlightening article. I really enjoy learning about the history of our enchanting Edmonds.
Mr. Wilkes thank you for all the research and very interesting article. I may be crazy but did you run across any information about another bakery. Probably around 1960 or so? I remember as a kid a bakery in Westgate area for a short time. I believe the folks were of Lithuanian ancestry and had a really really good danish we would get there along with other things. Your article reminded me of another great memory here.
Mike I did not run across the aforementioned bakery BUT I did not really research outside of the Edmonds city limits. Sounds like a great bakery though.
This was really fun! Thank you for all your research and sharing on this wonderful platform.