The Grad Building at 1410 - 11th Street

1410 - 11th Street - built in 1890




Click to hear Dirty Dan tell you about this building.

The Grad Building served as one of Fairhaven's two liquor warehouses in the early 1890s and did a land office business in a town that supported one saloon for every 200 people. Holland Liquor and Wine Wholesale Company was kept busy distributing Belle of the Sound Whiskey. It was rumored that the residences upstairs were rooms of ill repute. From 1888 until 1891, Fairhaven was overwhelmingly male. On weekends, workers from area mines, railroads, lumber camps, and construction teams would descend on the saloons, drink and rouse, sleep in the streets, and even die in the cold. The parking lot south of the current Fairhaven Dental office now in the Grad Building, was the site of a small, crowded jail. After the economic collapse of 1893, the building fell into disuse until German immigrant Michael Grad and his family converted the building into a residence for themselves. Grad Saloon was their business downstairs. In 1893 a newspaper reported that "The tin roof on Mike Grad's saloon in Fairhaven was rolled up and blown into the street last night." By the time Mr. Grad died in 1907, he had acquired considerable property, owning the Grad Block and additional other buildings.

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