People's Dock was established near here about 1890 and was then one of three docks in the harbor serving freight and passenger traffic on steamboats. In 1923 it became the community's car ferry dock and 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 on the arrival and departure of local steamers, as people gathered at the landing to pick up mail and provisions and to gossip with neighbors, while steamboats also brought entertainers from the east and took local residents on picnics and other pleasant excursions. In 1911, Axel Uddenberg, an immigrant from Sweden, built the West Side Grocery next to People's Dock after already establishing a general mercantile beside the dock on the north end of the harbor. His 16-year-old son Bert managed the West Side Grocery and bought it from Axel in 1917, and the grocery eventually became a restaurant and tavern.