A Downtown Landmark Born from Fire
The Caspar Junker Building has stood in downtown Sandy Oregon for more than a century. When it opened, the building stood at the center of Sandy’s business district. Sandy has grown substantially since then. Today, the historic building is home to the Gateway Tavern and several neighboring businesses. Although its tenants have changed many times, the building remains remarkably similar to the way it appeared shortly after its completion in 1914.
Its story begins with Caspar Junker, one of Sandy’s early businessmen and civic leaders. It also begins with a fire that destroyed much of what he owned.
Caspar Junker Comes to Sandy
Caspar Junker, pronounced “yunker”, was born in Germany in 1865 and first came to Sandy in 1888. He later spent several years in Portland learning the hotel business.
In 1895, he married Katherine Schwankhart, who was also born in Germany. Two years later, the couple moved to Sandy and purchased the Sandy Hotel and its saloon from the widow of Baron Otto Von Scholley, one of early Sandy’s civic leaders and most colorful individuals. The Baron died of a stroke just as workers put the final touches on his new hotel.
Under the Junkers’ management, the hotel prospered. Caspar enlarged it with a two-story addition and later opened what people remembered as Sandy’s first saloon. He also built houses, developed land, and platted several additions to the growing town.
People knew Junker as a gracious host. Local accounts remembered him for helping newcomers who arrived in Sandy with little or no money for food or shelter. He reportedly kept his buildings neat and freshly painted.
The Junkers raised four children: Fred, Henry, Mary, and Kate.
Caspar’s work extended beyond his businesses. He served four years as Sandy’s mayor and eight years on the city council. He was active in Immanuel Lutheran Church, served on local school boards, and participated in numerous civic projects.
In 1910, Junker sold the Sandy Hotel and an adjoining saloon to George Wolf. He then turned his attention to property he owned across the street from the hotel on the south side of what is now Pioneer Boulevard.
The Sandy Fire of 1913
At about 4:40 on the morning of October 20, 1913, fire broke out in the vacant Sandy Saloon building owned by George Odell. The building had remained unoccupied for some time, and no one had used fire or light inside. The cause remained a mystery.
Within two hours, flames had swept through a row of four more wooden buildings.
The fire claimed Odell’s building, Sandy Hotel’s barn and livery stable, John’s Restaurant, the Star Saloon, and the Sandy Café. The restaurant and the Star Saloon belonged to Junker.
Sandy had no organized fire department. Residents formed a bucket brigade and did what they could to slow the flames. Residents led livestock from the livery stable, while hotel guests and business owners carried their belongings to safety. After workers saved the stock from a shoe shop, they tore down the building to stop the fire from spreading farther.
For a time, residents feared that the entire town might burn. Fortunately, there was little wind that morning.
The estimated total loss was approximately $6,000. About $5,000 of that loss fell on Caspar Junker, who carried only $3,000 in insurance. The fire left little more than smoldering ruins where Junker’s buildings had stood.
Rebuilding with Concrete
Junker did not replace the lost wooden buildings with more of the same. Instead, he chose to rebuild in reinforced concrete.
The decision was an unusually modern one for a small rural community. Newspapers called the proposed structure “fireproof,” and it became Sandy’s first reinforced-concrete commercial building.
Architect Atte Kleemann designed the building, and A. Graf served as its builder. In December 1913, townspeople and workers gathered for the placement of its cornerstone. During the ceremony, workers sealed a copper box inside.
The box contained a Sandy newspaper, photographs of Caspar and Katherine Junker, a history of their family, business cards from Kleemann and Graf, a 1913 coin, and other items representing the community. A small time capsule inside the building marked Sandy’s recovery from the fire.
Workers laid the cornerstone in late 1913 and completed the building in 1914.
The Caspar Junker Building Opens
The completed building contained a row of commercial spaces facing Sandy’s main street.
A photograph taken around 1918 shows Caspar Junker standing outside the Hazelwood lunch and ice cream parlor at the building’s left end. Other businesses include the J. Scales General Merchandise store and a drug store.
The concrete building was a major investment in Sandy’s future. It also reflected a lesson learned the hard way. Fire could destroy closely spaced wooden buildings within hours, but reinforced concrete gave Junker and his tenants better protection.
Caspar is standing at the left in front of his restaurant and ice cream parlor. Next is a barber shop with two barbers. Then Jack Scales Grocery and General Merchandise Store. In the last section is Esson’s Drug Store.
A Building That Has Endured
Caspar Junker remained an important figure in Sandy for the rest of his life. The neighborhoods he helped develop and the legal descriptions of land once included in Junker’s First, Second, and Third Additions to Sandy still show his influence.
His most visible legacy, however, is the concrete commercial building he constructed after the fire of 1913.
More than 110 years later, the Caspar Junker Building continues to serve the same basic purpose its builders intended. Its storefronts remain occupied, and people still gather, shop, and conduct business within its walls.
Many of Sandy’s early wooden landmarks disappeared through fire or redevelopment. The Caspar Junker Building endured. It stands as a reminder of the fire that changed the center of town, the businessman who chose to rebuild differently, and the confidence Sandy’s early residents placed in their community’s future.
Sources
- Sandy Historical Society, “Junker Business Building—1914.”
- “Oregon Town of Sandy Razed by $6,000 Fire,” The Daily Astorian, October 21, 1913.
- “Sandy Building Up,” The Sunday Oregonian, December 14, 1913.
- “Cornerstone Is in Place,” The Sunday Oregonian, December 21, 1913.
- Sandy local-history publications and photographs supplied by the author.