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Skagit River Journal

of History & Folklore
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Covers from British Columbia to Puget Sound. Counties covered: Skagit, Whatcom, Island, San Juan, Snohomish & BC. An evolving history dedicated to committing random acts of historical kindness
Noel V. Bourasaw, editor (bullet) 810 Central Ave., Sedro-Woolley, Washington, 98284
Home of the Tarheel Stomp (bullet) Mortimer Cook slept here & named the town Bug
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Grand Opening R&E Engineering
813 Metcalf, Sedro-Woolley, in the restored
Wicker-Lederle Building June 20, 5:30 p.m.


(Skagit Realty)
      The building at 813 Metcalf Street was erected in 1910 for Charles Wicker of Skagit Realty and later housed J.C. Penney and then the Lederle Shoe Store for six decades. Click on the photo for a larger version with more detail.

      Reichhardt and Ebe Engineering has totally remodeled the Wicker-Lederle Building at 813 Metcalf Street in Sedro-Woolley and Branch Manager James Hobbs Jr. will host a grand opening reception for the public from 5:30-7 p.m., Wednesday, June 20. The Sedro-Woolley Chamber of Commerce will stage a ribbon-cutting at 5:30 and the public is invited to tour the building. Challenger Ridge Winery of Concrete is pouring wine for the occasion.
      R&E has restored the building as close as possible to when it opened as a real estate office. Back in 1910, when Sedro-Woolley business was booming during the construction of the new asylum that became Northern State Hospital, Charles J. Wicker Sr. took part of the profits from the sale of the Northern State land and erected the building for Skagit Realty.
      Wicker and Harry Lincoln Devin formed their Skagit Realty in a small office on State Street in 1902. Devin was one of the pioneers of old Sedro by the river in 1889 and Wicker homesteaded a quarter section of land in the Skiyou district that ended on the north and west where the Union Cemetery stands today. Their company became the place where nearly every residential and business lot in the city changed hands. Then, in 1915, Manager Gus Gilbertson (future mayor) came here from Wyoming to open store number 83 in the J.C. Penney in Sedro-Woolley and the company took out a lease for two years at 813 Metcalf. Wicker and Devin moved their business to the relatively new Livermore Apartments building, which still stands at the northwest corner of State and Metcalf streets. Penney took another two-year lease in 1917 until 1919 when the store moved across the street to where Skagit Surveyors is today.
(Lederle Shoe Store)
Charles and Dorothy Lederle at the store, 1960
      A jeweler and music store occupied the 813 building for the next two years, until the pioneer Lederle family bought the building from Wicker for $7,000 on Aug. 3, 1921. Charles Lederle shared the building with the jeweler for two years but then expanded in 1923 and added an extension all the way back to the alley that almost doubled the store's area. Joseph F. Lederle Sr. brought his young family to the Utopia district east of Sedro-Woolley in the summer 1889. He and his wife, Anna, eventually had 13 children and Charles W. Lederle was the fourth. His father moved his cobbler's shop to the west side of Metcalf (where Holland Drugs stands in 2007). Charles took over the shop when his father died in 1912.
      The Lederle family maintained a shoe store there for nearly six decades. After Charles W. Lederle retired in 1946, his son, Charles J. Wicker, took over the store and he and his wife operated it until Charles died in 1976. His widow operated the store until 1982 when the family sold it to Bryce's Boots and Shoes, which occupied the building through 1984. In 1985, the Meyers family opened the Woodshed Office Supplies store and operated there for 11 years. After that, another office supply store occupied the space and most recently, the Destiny Ice Cream Shop. The building was vacant from 2002 until 2005, when Reichhardt and Ebe Engineering of Lynden purchased the building and they began a total remodel in the spring of 2006. The entryway to the building was substantially changed first and then a crew of carpenters gutted the building down to the foundation and the brick walls. A new hardwood floor has been installed and in April 2007 the front area of the building was partitioned into offices.
Story posted on May 1, 2007 . . . Please report any broken links so we can update them

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