Jerry's View: That building at 9811 17th SW? I used to own it!

Let me tell you about 9811 17th SW where a colorful mural has been painted recently. I used to own that building. It was my home away from home as the White Center News office for nearly 25 years...

When we bought the paper it was on Roxbury in a building which now houses a restaurant and the offices for the Velling Family Dentistry.

The old building started out as a Chinese restaurant on 16th S.W. and 98th S.W. and which caught fire when the owner was using gasoline to clean the hood on the oven.

Bud Atwood and Oren Artlip owned the Ranch Market across street on 16th S.W. and bought the   burned  out  hulk and  then traded  it to me for advertising . I had the damaged hulk dragged down to 17th S.W. where it became the White Center News after a lot of remodeling.

The sign was refurbished and placed on top.

The building next door which now houses Malo Auto Rebuild was the original White Center Feed Store, moved from quarters on 16th S.W.  

For  awhile,  we had customers coming in the front door of our newspaper office trying  to buy oats and hay. We offered them an annual subscription instead.

On our north side, our neighbor on the top  floor was Dr. Roy Velling. 

One summer day I was walking up the  front steps  and was suddenly doused with water. It was a cloudburst and came  from the sky. Or so I thought. Peeking  out of his  second  story office I spotted a grinning Roy Velling and he was  waving a huge turkey baster. He got this turkey splat on the side of my head. I should have retaliated but the office hose would not shoot water far enough up hill.

I decided to postpone revenge.

Our remodeled office served us  for about  ten years  till we  grew out it and built a two-story concrete block building on 14th S.W. and installed a big new offset press and a second building for an office  and  newsprint storage on 13th S.W.

Pete Desimone owned a huge steel Quonset hut down the  street from us which much later became the  White  Center branch of Seattle First bank. 

The  first  month I arrived in town, in 1951, I was  invited to attend a girlie  show put on by one of the  service  clubs at Pete's Nightclub .I never had been to one so I took my camera and was going  to take  some  pictures. I was a babe in the  woods. First they turned  down the lights and then the scantly glad girlies put on their  show. The  devil made  me do it  but  it was dark and I popped a flash bulb  and held the camera against  the  wall behind me  so when the ladies of the  night  ordered the lights  back on I was safe.
After the show  I went home.

 I later learned Sheriff  Callahan raided the place and grabbed a bunch of  slot  machines.They tried to grab  a reel of  French movies but several fleet-footed local businessmen got the  film out  the back   door. 
Those businessmen all are history now  but would have skinned me  alive if they  knew I had a  camera.

I never did develop that film.