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Skagit River Journal

of History & Folklore
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The most in-depth, comprehensive site about the Skagit.
Covers from British Columbia to Puget sound. Counties covered: Skagit, Whatcom, Island, San Juan. An evolving history dedicated to the principle of committing random acts of historical kindness

Noel V. Bourasaw, editor (bullet)

810 Central Ave., Sedro-Woolley, Washington, 98284
Home of the Tarheel Stomp (bullet)

Mortimer Cook slept here & named the town Bug

A.E. Holland and Holland Drugs

A.E. Holland, circa 1910

We can pinpoint the day that 17-year-old Albert E. Holland arrived in old Sedro because of an item in the diary of Nina Cook, daughter of old-Sedro founder Mortimer Cook: "July 15, 1986. There is a new clerk at the store — Albert Holland, I think. I guess he will be pretty good, though is most wonderfully independent." Holland came here from Philadelphia, where he was born on Sept. 28, 1868. Within five years the young man established Holland drug store, which still stands as oldest business in Skagit county under the same name, and he built a fortune by investing in local acreage and timber.
He started the first Sedro-region ferry across the Skagit River with another partner, possibly A.F. Means, right next to the present Riverfront Park. It was a crude affair, with winches on both ends that attached by cables to onto another cable that was strung between trees on opposite sides. The swift water current propelled it. When the Cook family visited Riverfront Park as honored guests for the first Founders Days in 1994, we found a thick, rusted cable imbedded into a massive cedar on the north shore of the Skagit. The tree has long ago grown around it and this is possibly the north anchor for the ferry. Holland originally charged tolls until 1891, when he sold the ferry to the county and it became a free conveyance. The ferry was eventually moved to Hart's Island near Third street and operated there until the first bridge was built in 1912.
Sometime in 1889-90 Holland became a partner with A. Amott Tozer in an old-Sedro drug store in the block across from the Fairhaven and Southern Railroad depot and bought him out completely in 1894. The business was originally called Sedro Drug. Holland affixed his name to it when he became full owner; and that is why 1894 is used as the beginning date in the logo for the present store. The account in Holland's Courier-Times obituary of July 5, 1923, explains that Holland began as a silent partner with Tozer and eventually took over the stock and 100 percent of the business. Tozer effectively left town for good by 1891, setting up retail drug stores in Leavenworth, Cascade Tunnel and Everett. One couldn't blame him with the depressed state locally by 1893, but Holland stuck it out and parlayed his original drug store into one of the largest pioneer fortunes in Sedro-Woolley.

Partnership with "Dr." Tozer Tozer affected the name doctor but we could never find his name listed as a physician on any official records. Then we found a document at the LaConner Museum that illuminated this pioneer character. Written by Mrs. John W. Hall, this history of Avon explains that Tozer set up his first drug store there at the bend of the Skagit river above Mount Vernon in 1889. He even advertised himself in the Skagit News with "Dr." affixed before his name, but Mrs. Hall says that he never received medical training and was considered "peculiar" by his peers. Perhaps he wanted to create respectability with a title, as many legendary "colonels" did. Others on the frontier called themselves doctor for slightly more carnal reasons at that time, as in the "laying on of hands." Whatever his reasons, he proved to be very accomplished at accumulating wealth. Mrs. Hall notes that he carried his lunch in his pocket every day and hung around the courthouse looking for abandoned claims, then bought up timberland for as little as possible. Fifty years later, he was diagnosed with cancer and, having no family, he traveled to Ellensburg to visit two nephews he barely knew. He asked them to care for him and in exchange he would give them all the unencumbered property he owned. The nephews were aware that he was a bit crotchety, so they offered to build him a cabin on their place but they decided that actually caring for him was not worth any amount of money. Maybe they did not know how much he owned, because after Tozer was rebuffed, he traveled back to the Mayo clinic in Minnesota and made the same offer to doctors there. The doctors checked his bona fides and discovered that he was worth well over a million dollars. They accepted his donation and cared for him until he died there. We found this story in the undocumented manuscript about Avon and wondered if it might be too good to be true. Sure enough, there is a Tozer Foundation in Stillwater, Minnesota. We are waiting for word about whether it was inspired by our country "doctor." We do know that David Tozer was a very wealthy timber man in Stillwater and David Tozer's name shows up on dozens of sections of Skagit valley land in the 1920s and '30s.
After a flood and fire caused considerable damage to the original village of Sedro in the early 1890s partners Tozer and Holland moved their business to new Sedro, where Norman Kelley based his plat of new Sedro on high ground where the high school stands today. They set up shop in a woodframe building along with C.E. Bingham's bank. After an 1894 fire destroyed the bank and drug store in what was called the Pioneer Block, Holland and Bingham moved temporarily to the northwest corner of Jameson and Third street. By that time, Tozer had left the partnership and the business became known as Holland Drugs. That is why the centennial of the business was celebrated in 1894. Apparently both Bingham and Holland moved their businesses to the newer town of Woolley sometime by the end of 1896, where they reopened in another woodframe building on the corner of Woodworth and Metcalf.
Holland and Bingham prospered as Washington recovered from the 1890s depression with the help of Klondike cash, and they became powerful countywide after the towns of Sedro and Woolley merged in 1898. They moved their older building from the corner on log rollers in 1905 and built the brick Bingham-Holland building that still stands there today. The old building stood across the alley, just south of the present post office, and was finally torn down when Thrifty built the grocery store that is now called the Marketplace. The new stone building opened for business on the Fourth of July of 1906 and survived a fire that gutted both businesses in January 1909. Over the years, Holland was very active in civic affairs, serving on the first city council in 1891. He was a member of United Lodge No. 93, F. and A. M. [Masonic]; the new Whatcom commandery Knight Templars; and the Nile Shrine Temple.
Researcher Roger Peterson found an obituary from 1911 for Holland's uncle, Donald McLaughlin [sometimes also spelled McLachlin], who died here on Sept. 28 that year at age 78. The obituary says that McLaughlin had lived here 25 years, so he may have accompanied Holland. McLaughlin married Margaret D. Monroe, from another old family, in 1888. Another relative, E.R. McLaughlin, owned a hardware store in old Woolley. They may have also been related to Thomas McLaughlin, who was Sedro constable in 1891.

Deathbed, miraculous recovery and wedding bells Holland died in 1923 after having invested in the lumber business for several years. The story of Holland's second marriage seems as if it could have been a plot line for a Gothic novel. The year before his death, his personal life was subject to a scandal that the National Enquirer would love. His first marriage was to Lily B. Hartley on May 9, 1901, according to county records, and he was divorced sometime after the 1915 City Directory was published and before the 1920 census.
In the 1920 census rolls, we find that he is divorced and he has a housekeeper named Charlotte M. Gross, who was born in Illinois in 1890, 22 years Holland's junior. In the summer of 1923, Holland took seriously ill, but a visit by Ms. Gross to his Seattle hospital room seemed to work miracles towards his recovery. The July, 1923 Pacific Drug Review spins the following tale.

A. E. Holland, pioneer druggist of Sedro-Woolley, where he has closely been identified with the lumbering interests of the upper Skagit for many years, was united in marriage on May 9 to Mrs. Charlotte Gross. Mr. Holland, who has been in excellent health for many years, was taken seriously ill about two weeks before.
"He was conveyed to Providence Hospital in Seattle, but grew worse. Mrs. Gross accompanied him and was constantly at his bedside. Mr. Holland's physician said that he would probably die before morning as his heart could not stand the strain many hours longer.

Local wags made a toast to Holland's miraculous bedside recovery, but alas, it was not to be, as Holland died a short time later. The Courier-Times obituary mentions Holland's vast wealth, which was estimated to have been well into six figures, a grand sum at the time, possibly close to $300,000. Holland's first wife and his cousin contested Holland's new will but lost in court. The newly rich Mrs. Holland and her daughter May, by a previous marriage, lived in style in Holland's old home. The widow inherited most of the south half of block 11, Grand Junction addition to Sedro, a prime piece of real estate where their home stood. In the late 1930s, a new doctor named Harold Hopke moved to Sedro-Woolley and he bought the old two-story Holland home from the widow Holland, which old timers will remember as Hopke's office and clinic.
Walter Cottingham worked for Holland since 1911 and managed the store during Holland's illness and after his death and Holland's original will bequeathed half the business to him. Many locals assumed the widow Holland would sell the store to Cottingham or give him part of it, but she held out for several months. Finally, a delegation from the local Ladies Club visited her and urged her to sell the remainder to Cottingham. She finally sold her interest to Cottingham and moved to Seattle with her new husband, a local logger named Al Stendal. Holland had a daughter by his first wife. Her name was May or Mae and Sedro-Woolley old-timer John Stendal recalls that she moved to Hawaii, but we have been unable to find any record of her. Cottingham continued in business as the Holland Drug Co. in the Bingham-Holland building until 1950, when he sold out to Dr. J. W. Doughty, who had just retired as superintendent of Northern State Hospital. In less than two years, Doughty sold it to the late Ernest and Maxine Breier, who are responsible for bringing the business into modern focus.

The Briers move Holland Drugs "I can remember boxes on display in the old store location that were dated in the teen years," recalls Roger Peterson, local historian who frequented downtown in the 1940s. "When Ernie got involved, he began clearing the dead wood and began introducing up-to-date lines." Old-timers will recall that a mural depicting local logging was painted on the back inside wall of Holland's store in 1962 by an art class from the high school. Holland's original part of the building was last occupied by the Your Office Advantage office at 804 Metcalf. Peterson also notes that Holland Drugs never had a soda fountain, which was a common feature of early drug stores. At least 80 percent of the business until the 1960s was in dispensing drugs prescribed by doctors who had their offices in downtown Woolley. The Briers introduced gift lines and Jerry Willins, the present owner, expanded that line in the past two decades, featuring an extensive line of Hallmark gifts and cards. The store is being extensively remodeled in the summer of 2003.
Ernest Breier was the son of C. J. Breier, the patriarch of a chain of 70-plus dry goods stores that dotted the northwest states. The home base was in Lewiston, Idaho, according to the late Maxine Brier, Ernest's widow, in a 1994 interview when she lived near the Greenstreet addition. "He was caught by surprise by the crash of 1929, and he couldn't withdraw his funds before his bank experienced a run. He eventually lost the stores, but kept the home building," she recalled. C. J. Breier and Sons stores were once represented in Sedro-Woolley in the 1920s in two different locations. Maxine Brier died here in the spring of 2002.
When the Breiers opened their expanded store in the summer of 1967, every kid in the county seemed to show up for balloons and hot dogs and their parents came along for bargains that imitated prices of olden days. Ed and Beverly Preston bought the expanded business later that year, and when Ed became ill, they hired Jerry Willins as treasurer and manager. He later became president in 1980 and under his ownership, the store has become part of the countywide Holland Services group of stores that specialize in pharmaceuticals and health products and equipment. The strength and endurance of the business is obvious since four or more drug stores once competed within two blocks downtown and Holland is the only one still there. Willins celebrated the store's centennial in 1994.

Old Holland bottles can be valuable Just as a sidelight, if your property once had an outhouse on it, you could be standing on top of history. Folks often took bottles of one kind or another into the privy with them and often threw them down the hole when they were empty. Collectors gravitate to these areas for their most fruitful searches. A local collector has been probing the back yards of old Sedro and Woolley residences with a long wooden pole with a metal strip on the end that detects and roots out the bottles in the soil. If they do not have great value on the open market, they will certainly be treasured by the Sedro-Woolley Museum. Call (360) 855-0638 if you find any of the bottles or if you can share any other Holland history with the museum.

Story posted on April 1, 2001 and updated on May 1, 2003
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