WELCOME TO
BENTON COUNTY, WASHINGTON
in the heart of the Columbia Basin

page 22, Tri-City Herald, January 8, 1961

By BURTON 0. LUM
Tri-City Pioneer

Chamber Pots, Axel Grease/
Merchants of Yesteryear

The first general mercantile store in Kennewick was owned and operated by Henry Leeper.  
It was located near the Kennewick House Hotel.  Henry Leeper was a tall thin man.  He always
 wore a Rutherford B. Hayes style beard.  His health was none too good.  His wife was a 
dark complexioned, small, good looking woman.  The son Herman was a husky, fine, 
industrious, handsome youth.  The family lived in a very finely furnished living quarters
 in the rear of the store building.  The family ran the store.  With courteous service, they 
rapidly built a splendid trade and a fine stock of merchandise.  It consisted in part as 
follows:  staple groceries, flour, sugar, salt, rice, canned goods and smoked meats, and 
vegetables in the food section; nails, horseshoes, clevises, single trees, double trees, 
rope, spreader chains, horse hobbles, pack saddles, horse harnesses, riding saddles, 
hand axes, picks, shovels, hammers, crowbars, handsaws, bucksaws, cross-cut saws, 
garden rakes, hoes, grub hoes, frying pans, iron kettles, stew pans, dutch ovens, files, 
lamp chimneys, chamber pots, and axle-grease in the hardware section.  A small line of
 men’s and women’s and children’s boots, shoes, sox, stockings, overshoes, denim 
overalls, and jackets; bolt goods of calico, canton flannel, house lining, and mosquito 
netting in the clothing and drygoods department. This is not a complete inventory, 
but gives some idea of the stock carried.  You will notice the absence of all electrical 
supplies.  There was no electricity to use in the Early Days and no inside plumbing.  
Merchant Leeper and his family were very successful in the operation of their store.  
Unfortunately the health of Henry Leeper gradually grew worse.  They were forced to
 sell the store.  They moved to North Yakima where the son, Herman, in after years, 
became Yakima’s Postmaster.  There were two general stores and one Chinese store 
in Pasco at this time.  I am not sure which opened first, but believe it was John Towles’
 (pronounced toals).  John Towles was a huge man, standing well over six-feet and 
weighing over three-hundred pounds.  His wife was a Indian woman.  They lived in
 the rear of the store building.  Towles’ stock of merchandise was not large.  He 
carried a little of everything.  He did most of the clerking himself.  For such a large 
man he was quite active.  He kept his store swept clean, the windows well washed 
and his merchandise neatly arranged.  His wife never waited on the customers but 
stayed in the living quarters where she prepared their meals.  The real swell General 
Mercantile Store of Pasco was owned by Robert Gerry. This was the finest and largest
 store in the Tri-City region and rivaled the stores of Walla Walla.  It was at this date, 
modern to the last degree.  It was divided into grocery, hardware, clothing, dry goods,
 and furniture departments.  There was a small balcony constructed high in the rear 
corner of the store.  This supported a large steel safe, the proprietor’s desk, chair 
and clothes tree.  Also, there was the bookkeeper and cashier’s desk, chair and a 
table from which ran wires to every counter of the store.  On these wires hung a small 
trolley bearing a leather coin container.  The clerk at the counter would place the sales
 slip and payment in the leather container.  Then by means of a rubber slingshot, he 
would shoot the container over the wire to the cashier on the balcony who would make
 the change, place it in the container that would roll by gravity back over the wire
 to the sales counter.  The cashier had a brand new contraption which, by pushing 
buttons, could make the correct change.  This was a very early model of a cash register. 
 The store also had a delivery wagon.  This store did not barter with the farmers or 
stockmen for their products.  It paid them cash in return sold to them for cash.  
The old Trading Post system of barter was abandoned.  Gerry was well financed. 
 He was an honest and brilliant business man.  A distant relative was Elbridge Gerry,
 the famous old colonial politician who divided the representative districts in such 
a manner as would favor his party.  This practice has since been called Gerrymandering.  
The Chinese store was owned and operated by a Chinese merchant, Wong How, 
and it could be possible that his store was the first in the region.  He furnished 
supplies to the early day Chinese placer miners who mined the sand bars of the 
Columbia River.  He was a very honest and well liked individual.  He was very public
 spirited and many times donated the fireworks for the Early Day Fourth of July
 Celebration.

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