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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
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Then and Now: Stone’s Food Stores

1934: The Stone’s Food Stores location at 319 S. Cedar St., was one of the first opened by Roy L. Stone after he stepped away from the merger of Safeway and his previous employer, MacMarr Stores, around 1931. Stone’s Food Stores were sold to Sigman Foods in 1946 and Stone would try another grocery chain with Low Cost Foods in 1951. The automobile in front was to advertise a contest by the Sperry Flour Mills, where the prize was a new car. (THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW PHOTO ARCHIVES)
1934: The Stone’s Food Stores location at 319 S. Cedar St., was one of the first opened by Roy L. Stone after he stepped away from the merger of Safeway and his previous employer, MacMarr Stores, around 1931. Stone’s Food Stores were sold to Sigman Foods in 1946 and Stone would try another grocery chain with Low Cost Foods in 1951. The automobile in front was to advertise a contest by the Sperry Flour Mills, where the prize was a new car. (THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW PHOTO ARCHIVES)
By Jesse Tinsley jesset@spokesman.com(509) 459-5378

Spokane’s Stone’s Food Stores in the 1930s were a brief moment in the work of the region’s ambitious grocery executives in the 20th century.

It can be argued that many early retail innovations started at the Skaggs Cash Store, which opened in 1915, in American Falls, Idaho. The store took only cash, but focused on low prices and merchandising.

Owners Samuel and Nancy Skaggs and many of their nine children would start drug stores and grocery businesses that revolutionized modern retailing.

Another innovative executive in the grocery industry was Roy L. Stone, born in Driggs, Idaho, in 1899, who became an assistant manager of a Skaggs drugstore in Oakland, California, in 1920.

Working on his own over eight years, Stone had organized 32 small stores across the Western states into a chain of his own, which he sold in 1928 to MacMarr stores. Charles Edward Marr had assembled it into one of the largest grocery chains in the Northwest. Stone became a vice president of 160 locations.

The biggest move was for MacMarr to merge its 1,400 stores with the Safeway brand in 1931, for which Marr became vice president in the massive grocery chain. Charles Merrill of Merrill Lynch had used his investments to create Safeway, which had included several start-ups with ties to the Skaggs family.

But Stone left Safeway and returned to Spokane, where he started building a new chain, Stone’s Food Stores. The first was at 319 S. Cedar St. He built seven stores in Spokane and several more around the region. His stores had the features of a modern grocer, like self-service shopping and reliable refrigeration for dairy, meat and frozen foods, but they were still smaller than future supermarkets that came after World War II.

Another independent operator in Eastern Washington was Lisle Sigman, who started as a teen in 1913 in Colfax. He started Sigman Foods in 1939 in Yakima.

Sigman built eight stores by 1946, which was when he bought Stone’s chain in Spokane.

After taking a break from business for a few years, Stone came back with Low Cost Food Market in 1951 and added four more stores before handing the business over to a partnership as his health declined around 1959.

Stone died in 1973.