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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
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Then and Now: Piggly Wiggly warehouse

1928: The Piggly Wiggly warehouse at 28 E. Riverside Ave. in Spokane served the company at a time of explosive growth of the company and the industry as a whole. George B. Christensen of Utah was guiding the Piggly Wiggly grocery chain at that time. Western Piggly Wiggly merged the MacMarr Stores chain in 1929 which was later bought by Safeway around 1931. (Libby Photo Collection Courtesy of Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture)
1928: The Piggly Wiggly warehouse at 28 E. Riverside Ave. in Spokane served the company at a time of explosive growth of the company and the industry as a whole. George B. Christensen of Utah was guiding the Piggly Wiggly grocery chain at that time. Western Piggly Wiggly merged the MacMarr Stores chain in 1929 which was later bought by Safeway around 1931. (Libby Photo Collection Courtesy of Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture)
By Jesse Tinsley jesset@spokesman.com(509) 459-5378

The 1920s were a turbulent time in the world of grocery stores across the country. Self-service grocery stores were new, originating with the Piggly Wiggly chain that began in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1916, founded by Clarence Saunders. The new style store was called a “groceteria,” a play on the word “cafeteria,” a self-service restaurant that was also new at the time.

To foster growth, Piggly Wiggly focused on franchising their name and business plan, signing up hundreds of smaller stores into a growing chain.

Separate from Saunders’ original company, multiple Piggly Wiggly companies were started in other parts of the country, paying a licensing fee for the catchy name Saunders originated. George B. Christensen started a branch in Salt Lake City that would grow quickly in the Northwest. The Utah branch officially merged with a California branch in 1926 to form Western States Piggly Wiggly, which had already been signing up Washington and Oregon stores since 1922.

Christensen’s first Piggly Wiggly store in Spokane opened in 1922 at 221 N. Post St. By 1927, the company listed 16 stores in Spokane and 25 more spread from Lewiston to Bonners Ferry to Kennewick.

In the same era, Charles Marr, of Spokane, started his chain of MacMarr stores. Marr grew up in Missouri and was the son of a pioneering grocery retailer. After moving to Spokane, he went from his first store in 1909 to 575 stores by 1929.

“It has been like a snowball – it started rolling and we couldn’t stop it,” Marr said in 1929. “We started out to link up the stores of Portland, Seattle and Spokane and, well, it just kept going on and on.”

In 1929, Marr’s chain took over Western Piggly Wiggly, keeping the name on some of the stores.

But two years later, a new grocery company, Safeway, swallowed up Marr’s chain of more than 1,300 stores spread through several Western states. Safeway, owned by the Skaggs family and Charles Merrill of Merrill Lynch, became the dominant grocery chain in the Western U.S. almost overnight. Safeway was affiliated with more than 3,400 stores in 1932.

Marr continued work as a Safeway executive while Christensen moved on to work at other stores in Canada after the takeover.