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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
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Then and Now: B.L. Gordon building

1976 - This photo from high in the Double Tree Hotel looks northeast, down on the Division Street Bridge at right and the Pier 1 Imports store at left. The Pier 1 building was constructed in 1910 for B.L. Gordon and Co., wholesale grocers, which went out of business in the 1930s. Pier 1 Imports has occupied the building since 1974. (THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW PHOTO ARCHIVE / THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW PHOTO ARCHIVE)
1976 - This photo from high in the Double Tree Hotel looks northeast, down on the Division Street Bridge at right and the Pier 1 Imports store at left. The Pier 1 building was constructed in 1910 for B.L. Gordon and Co., wholesale grocers, which went out of business in the 1930s. Pier 1 Imports has occupied the building since 1974. (THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW PHOTO ARCHIVE / THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW PHOTO ARCHIVE)
The Spokesman-Review

Burgess L Gordon, born in Pike County, Missouri, in 1864, arrived in Spokane in 1890. He’d spent a few years before that in the wholesale grocery business in Socorro, New Mexico, and when he arrived here, he joined the firm of Herrin, Carpenter and Gordon.

In 1893, Gordon struck out on his own, opening B.L. Gordon and Co. In 1910, he built the 16,000-square-foot building on the riverfront, next to the Division Street Bridge. For more than a dozen years, the building served the grocery business.

In 1924, he opened a branch in St. Maries and another in Coeur d’Alene.

The business made the Gordon family wealthy. The family purchased the mansion built by F.L. Lewis Clark, a wealthy businessman, on the 600 block of West Seventh Avenue. They also purchased a 1,700-acre farm south of Cheney and a 200-acre farm in Spokane Valley.

The Gordons entertained lavishly in the former Clark mansion, named Underhill, and were prominent in social events.

Gordon’s company and another competitor, Benham and Griffith Co., were purchased by the Powell-Sanders company early in 1925. After the sale of the business, Gordon dabbled in other businesses, including working with the W.S. McCrea company.

A few months later, Ralph Gordon opened his own grocery distributing business, Ralph Gordon and Co., in 1925. Ralph built a 20,000-square-foot warehouse in the first block of East Riverside Avenue. That business didn’t survive the early years of the Great Depression.

Gordon and his wife, Raphaelita, had three sons. Burgess Jr. became a well-known doctor and professor of medicine. Charles, and later Ralph, moved to Seattle. Both became journalists with the Seattle Times.

In 1929, the Gordons, who were devout Catholics, donated their mansion on Seventh Avenue, valued at $150,000, to the church on the condition that it become a girls’ school. The building became the center of Marycliff High School and was active until it closed in 1979.

Burgess Gordon died in 1935 in Seattle, where the family had moved in 1933.

The Powell-Sanders company didn’t survive the Depression either, and Gordon’s building fell into disrepair. Pier 1 Imports opened there in 1974 and has been there ever since. The building was extensively remodeled in 1993.