It’s time for another Alberta Street merchant portrait to add to the growing collection. Meet the crew from Anderson’s Grocery Store Number 5 at 676 Alberta Street, about 1930. That’s 1816 NE Alberta today (thanks to the Great Renumbering). Sent by AH photo friend Norm Gholston, this one is definitely worth a close look so click in for a good look around.
Here’s a challenge: Think you can identify all of the produce on display?
Anderson’s Store, 676 Alberta Street, about 1930. Courtesy of Norm Gholston.
1816 NE Alberta Street, April 2020
At its peak, Anderson’s Grocery was a 39-store chain of “cash stores” (all on Portland’s eastside) built by Carl G. Anderson starting in 1905, so called because there was no book of credit kept; business was “cash on the counter” only. This particular store was Anderson’s fifth and was well established by the time this photo was taken in the early 1930s. On the back of this photo are cryptic notes explaining that the young man in the middle was the person managing the store: James Franklin Frost.
Jim Frost was born in Selma, Oregon in 1905, married Emma Doering from Saskatchewan in 1927, worked for Anderson’s in the 1930s, enlisted in the service in 1943 and returned from the war to run Frost’s Grocery on the southeast corner of NE 30th and Killingsworth. He and Emma lived within walking distance of Anderson’s, and they ran small neighborhood mom and pop grocery stores all their lives.
We’re still working on the identity of the other two gentlemen—the butcher on the left and Frost’s stock clerk partner on the right. All of them in shirts and ties and shiny shoes, how about that?
Grocer Carl Anderson was a bit of an empire builder, and definitely thought of himself that way. This business profile, written not long after the photograph was taken, provides further insight into Anderson’s humble beginnings and rise to grocery stardom.
From The Oregonian, May 4, 1935
In the year after this story, Anderson opened a grocery in a new building at the heart of the Beaumont business district which we know today as Beaumont Market.
For the record, there was also an Anderson’s Grocery at NE 15th and Fremont, but that’s a different Anderson and a story for another day…
Alameda Old House History 
Norm – very cool picture. Terry’s father had the Rexall Drugstore on NE Alberta / 24th (now Just Bob Coffee Shop) Thanks for sharing. Sarah
I used to buy Green River sodas with phosphate at the Rexal Drugstore on 24th. Dr. David Duncan’s office was nearby. He was our family physician and the doctor who delivered me. I took him and his wife out for lunch shortly after his 100th birthday. (I told him that delivering me was his top professional accomplishment. He laughed.).
Thank you for your thoughtful, amusing and inspiring posts. You are a fantastic storyteller!
I count down the days until a new post goes up. I’d read one every day if I could!!
Kaitlin
Sent from my iPhone
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I’m just guessing about the produce: carrots, leeks, turnips, corn, spinach, peppers, and Zucca squash.
I found your website this morning while conducting some research and am enjoying all the stories. I know it take hours to do this research so thank you for your hard work! I’m researching the history of the house a relative of mine just moved into….which is what brought me to your site. A family named the Salmonsons lived in the house from approximately 1914 to 1942 (they moved out/sold sometime between 1942 and 1950). Sanders and Hilma, who immigrated from Finland, operated Salmonson’s Hardware & Paint Company on Alberta Street. Prior to renumbering, the store was addressed as 663 Alberta Street and then 668 Alberta Street. Thanks to your website, I know approximately where it was located. Sanders died in 1928 and Hilma in 1932. Their oldest daughter, Marie, and her husband George took over running the store until Marie’s death in 1956 (and also lived in the family home until at least 1942). Appears the store closed in 1956 (or thereabouts).