Our First Downtown

Known as the head of the harbor, North Gig Harbor, or Finholm's Marketplace, this area was Gig Harbor's first downtown. Beginning in the 1880s and continuing into the early 1920s, it contained the community's first mercantile, first library, first phone service, the post office, a butcher shop, bakery, several restaurants, a community hall, one of the harbor's three steamboat landings, and an outdoor bandstand. The harbor's first car ferry landing, built in 1917, stood at the head of the harbor and handled ferry traffic until 1923. Axel Uddenberg, an immigrant from Sweden, arrived in Gig Harbor in 1907 and opened his first store in his home near this location beside a passenger steamboat landing. He built a new store in 1910 and later made his final move by building a brick marketplace. In 1935, at the age of 80, he sold the store to John Finholm, an immigrant from Finland who had opened his first Gig Harbor store in 1931. The store Axel sold still bears the Finholm name.

Gig Harbor, Washington · United States