An early morning fire at the Nordland General Store last week prompted the closure of the iconic Marrowstone Island fixture, the community’s historic gathering place, post office and grocery store.

But whether the store will reopen remains uncertain.

Tom Rose, who owns the store along with his wife Sue, said he was still unsure about what lies ahead.

“I don’t know if we’re going to be able to save the front of the store, maybe, and rebuild from there,” Rose said Tuesday.

“We’ve got the insurance guy coming over today and I don’t even want to go back inside myself. It’s so depressing, there’s so much stuff in there that were our memories,” he said.

Rose said his wife had planned to retire in April and he had intended to reduce his work schedule at the store.

“As far as what we want to do now, I’m 70 years old and, frankly, I don’t think I want to start all over from scratch again. We definitely want to redo the building, but other than that, it might be somebody else [who] wants to take over.”

Despite the possibility of a rebuild, Rose said it would be impossible to bring back the store to the way it was, given the years of accumulated memories held within.

“There’s no book to know what to do, we’re day-by-day right now,” he said. “I don’t know what to say, I feel like saying, ‘I’m sorry.’”

Those who would like to donate to the Roses may do so by reaching out to Rachel Van Laanen at Mystery Bay Farms by calling 360-774-0675.

community mourns

Even by midday Thursday, the air around the store still carried a faint scent of smoke as locals stopped by to chat with one another and survey the extent of the damage following the fire earlier that morning.

One of the passersby, Dan Powell, who works as a firefighter in Renton, has lived on Marrowstone since 2000.

“It’s an institution here,” Powell said. “They have festivals here, the Christmas tree lighting festival. They put a tree up across the street and the whole community comes out and we sing Christmas carols. They do the Polar Bear Dip.”

The store has served as a focal point for gatherings as well as neighbors just looking to catch up on the local news.

“It’s the town center,” Powell said. “We’ve got a mailbox here, not because it’s convenient, but because we like to come in and see how Tom’s doing and see how everyone’s doing on the island.”

Powell was accompanied at the fire scene by his wife, Carla Powell, who was busy catching up with local resident and former store employee Sheila Harwood.

“We raised our kids here; there’s pictures of my kids on the wall in there,” Carla Powell said, adding that islanders are already discussing what they can do to help out the owners.

“When we were here this morning, we were gathering in small groups and talking about what are we going to do?”

Having previously worked at the store, Harwood said she felt as though the fire had touched her own home.

“It’s the gathering place for the island,” she said. “It’s a terrible gut punch; we’re all just reeling from it,”

Harwood said she was hopeful the community would come together to get the Nordland General Store back on its feet.

Stepping out from the heavily charred interior of the store was Brian Tracer, assistant fire chief for East Jefferson Fire Rescue.

OWNERS DIAL 911

Tracer, a lifelong Marrowstone resident, said the damage dealt to the building was extensive.   

He said East Jefferson Fire Rescue received the alarm for a commercial structure fire around 2:30 a.m. Nov. 5.

“We showed up, ventilated the roof, pulled the fire and the smoke out that way, saved the building so the majority of the contents are still in there,” Tracer said.

Much of the interior of the building sustained heavy smoke and heat damage, he added.

The fire had been reported by the Roses just before 2:30 a.m. Thursday, according to East Jefferson Fire Rescue.

The owners told emergency responders they woke up when they heard an alarm, and found smoke when they arrived at the wooden building on the corner of Flagler Road and Beveridge Lane.

FAST ACTION SAVES STORE

Firefighters found fire in the attic space when they arrived, according to East Jefferson Fire Rescue.

The fire was fully extinguished within an hour of the 911 call, officials said, and the building was saved but before sustaining extensive smoke damage.

Tracer said he found no evidence to suggest the fire wasn’t accidental.

“I have no doubt in mind that this was not an intentionally set fire; this is an accident,” Tracer said. “I have some items of interest that I have preserved for [investigators] to look at and send for further testing.”

Given the century-plus age of the building and the extent of the damage inside, Tracer estimated the building would be declared a total loss by the owner’s insurance company.

“Unfortunately, I think the insurance company will probably make the building a total loss,” he explained. “They’re going to have to pull all the wall fixtures and everything out, all the way to the studs, and determine how they build from there.”

The loss, Tracer said, extended beyond just the building.

“I’ve been here my entire life; this is a fixture within the community,” he said. “It’s one of those fixtures that’s been here a hundred years. It’s a community centerpoint, a rally point. There’s no doubt in my mind that this will be rebuilt. It would be a total loss for the community if it didn’t.”

“I can remember coming in on a boat fishing with my dad, as a 5- or a 6-year-old, coming in for a hot cocoa,” Tracer said, with a slight hitch in his voice. “It’s one of those things that’s emotional for the fire department to have to come out here and deal with this, but it’s one of the reasons we do it.”

Mail GOES to Port Hadlock

The U.S. Post Office in Port Hadlock announced the afternoon following the fire it would handle all mail bound for the Nordland Post Office.

The fire at the store also saw significant damage to the post office, which was attached to the building.

Residents with mailboxes at the Nordland Post Office will have boxes provided at the Port Hadlock office, according to postal staff.

Commissioners weigh in

Jefferson County commissioners even briefly discussed the fire at their meeting Monday.

Commissioner David Sullivan said he visited the store and the inside of the business had extensive smoke damage.

He recalled the effort of locals in years past to keep the Post Office in the building when the U.S. Postal Service had been closing and consolidating rural locations, and noted that having a post office was the one sure thing that kept many communities on the map.

Chimacum, Quilcene, Brinnon: Their locations are on maps because they have post offices, he said.

“And Nordland is one of those,” Sullivan said.

He added he had contacted Congressman Derek Kilmer’s office about the fire.

“It’s real important to the community out there,” Sullivan said.

County Commissioner Greg Brotherton agreed.

“It’s a real tragedy,” Brotherton said.

I’ve sat by the pot-bellied stove out there many a times and had a cup of coffee and a conversation,” he said. “It’s a great place.”

Commissioners wondered if there could potentially be funding from the Postal Service, or historic preservation dollars, that could help with recovering from the fire.

A long history

The Nordland General Store dates back to the 1920s, when Harry Johnson bought his younger brother Elmer’s grocery business. Included in the sale was the steamer Prosper, which carried the mail to Fort Flagler at the end of the island.

“He established the Nordland Trading Co. and built a large store on the banks of Mystery Bay directly in front of his house,” authors Karen Russell and Jeanne Bean wrote in “Marrowstone,” their 1978 book on the history of the island.

“Since there were no dependable trucking companies which would deliver freight to the island, Harry began making weekly trips to Seattle on the Prosper, carrying shipments of berries, poultry, and other cargo from Nordland and returning with a full load of supplies for his store and feed for the local poultrymen. Before long it became necessary to have additional room to store the sacks of feed and crates of goods he bought from the wholesalers in Seattle, so a warehouse was built next to the store in 1925.”

Johnson opened a new store in August 1933. A large addition was added six years later.

“The Nordland Trading Company was so named because of the barter system established by Harry Johnson during its early years,” Russell and Bean wrote in “Marrowstone”

“The local farms and the few Indians who still lived on Indian Spit exchanged their eggs and milk for feed and grain at Harry’s store.”

Another story in “Marrowstone” captured an intriguing highlight of the grocery’s rebuilding in its early years.

“The Nordland Trading Company was robbed of its safe sometime in the late ‘20s. The culprit absconded by boat and various important papers which had been in the safe were found floating in Mystery Bay. Determined that the incident would never be repeated, when Harry built his new store he bought a large safe and built the store around it. The doors were constructed wide enough for people to pass through, but just narrow enough so that the safe could not go out.”

Word of the damage spread quickly on social media and in emails to the Leader, locals familiar with the store’s history shared their memories of the island favorite.

“I lived on Marrowstone Island as a teen in the early 80s,” wrote Lori Reynolds. “Many memories around that sweet little store, including rowing our boat across the bay to catch the school bus there and tying my horse to the front post to run in and buy him his favorite treat, a stick of red licorice from the overflowing row of candy bins inside.”

Catherine Furnia recalled her childhood years walking to the store with the neighboring children.

“The owner at the time, Gladys Youngblood, always had some interesting stories,” Furnia wrote. “But in more recent years, Tom and Sue Rose have made the Nordland General Store the heart of the community. Now my children have grown up enjoying the store and swinging on the front porch, watching Santa come by boat to the tree lighting, attending the Tractor Days and Harvest Festival events, and of course, the Polar Bear Dip.”

All of those who wrote in to share their memories also shared in their belief that the Marrowstone Community is prepared to do what it takes to bring back the store.

The Leader’s Brian Kelly contributed to this story.