When I was growing up, it was like there were five members of the family. There was Mom, Dad, my brother and me, and “the store.” My mother was Charmian Orkney, my father Edward Orkney, my brother was David, and I was Jan. “The “store,” as we called it, was G.I. Joe’s, an army surplus store that my father started in North Portland in 1952.
G.I. Joe’s grew and grew, from one store in North Portland, to three stores next to each other at that location. While my dad was alive, G.I. Joe’s became a chain and added stores throughout the Portland area, and expanding into Salem, Oregon, in the mid 1970’s, and into Vancouver, Washington, in the mid 1980’s. Along the way, the merchandise changed, and peripheral stores opened and closed or were sold.
There was a shoe store in a Malwaukie mall in 1960, which closed after not very long. I worked there one summer during my high school years. Then there was Jean Machine, started by my brother in the mid 1970’s, selling jeans and tops. The first store was in the front of the original North Portland G.I. Joe's. Jean Machine thrived and grew to a chain of 22 stores, stretching from Olympia, Washington to Eugene, Oregon. And, after Dad’s death, there was also Action Outfitters, which sold upscale athletic shoes and clothes in three locations in the Portland area in the early 1980’s.
What was the genesis of G.I. Joe’s? I guess you could say my father’s first venture leading to the business occurred in 1946 when we lived in Hoquiam, Washington, and I was two years old.
Dad borrowed money from his mother, Mary Orkney, and submitted a bid on down sleeping bags at a government auction. He won the bid. Dad then placed ads in the Portland Oregonian and Portland Journal, and rented a fruit stand in North Portland, where he and my uncle, Miles Munson, sold out the sleeping bags in three days.
My father kept on attending the government surplus auctions at Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base, south of Tacoma. I understand that veterans were given preference in the auction process, and that must have been helpful to Dad, since he was a veteran, having served in the Army Air Corps in World War II.
He continued selling items he won at auction, on street corners or beside roads in the Portland area, but he also sold the merchandise wholesale. He would drive from Seattle to the Oregon/California border, selling to surplus store owners along the way.
Eventually Dad realized, according to my brother, that he could make more money selling from a store, than selling out of his car. And he wanted to be home with the family, instead of on the road.
So, in 1947, Dad started his first war surplus store in Salem, Oregon, in partnership with another World War II Army Air Corps pilot. The partners experimented with the pricing of merchandise. To save making change on a transaction, each item was priced an even amount. Instead of a price of $3.99 for example, the price was $4.00! Dad did not repeat this pricing strategy in later stores.
It seems, while my brother and I were growing up, that we were always surrounded by army surplus. I have a photo of David and me in Salem, when he was 1 year old and I was 3. We are playing in a G.I. pup tent that Dad set up for us in the backyard.
In 1948, we moved back to Portland. We lived in the North Portland area of Kenton, in a small 2 bedroom house a few miles from the Interstate Bridge. Many years later, that house was torn down with the building of the I-5 freeway. But, in the summers of 1948 and 1949, my brother and I splashed in our backyard wading pool. It was, of course, G.I. surplus! It was a yellow rubber raft, with water on the inside instead of the outside.
Around 1948, Dad joined with five others in a partnership in another war surplus store. It was in North Portland, on Vancouver Avenue, where G.I. Joe’s would eventually be located, four years later. The business was housed in a former war hospital tent. While it was relatively inexpensive and easy to put up, it did not provide good security. According to my mother, the tent was broken into by thieves slashing through the canvas roof.
On May 30, 1948, the Columbia River burst through the levees and flooded what was then called the Vanport area, where the store was. Land all around was covered with water, but the store itself was on high enough ground to stay dry. The Red Cross bought out the store’s stock of tents, sleeping bags, and cots, to aid flood refugees, my mother told me.
Eventually, that partnership dissolved, and my parents decided to check out Los Angeles, as a possible place to start a business. We did not stay there long! Dad was a Northwesterner through and through, having been born and raised in Hoquiam, Washington. Soon we were all back in Portland.
In 1951, Dad started his next business, called War Surplus Liquidators. It was located in a hospital tent again, this time on 82nd Avenue, south of Foster Road, in Southeast Portland. I would have been 7 years old, and can vaguely remember it. The entrance had 3 or 4 wooden steps up, with the name written in large letters across the front, the hospital tent peaking many times along the roof line.
Over the door, was a sign with Dad’s slogan, which he continued to use with G.I. Joe’s. “Come in and browse around,” it said, welcoming customers and potential customers. (See photo at www.GrowingUpWithGIJoesphotos.blogspot.com It is on the second page.)
Then, in 1952, Dad heard that a business located on Vancouver Avenue was for sale, where he had been in partnership in the 1948 army surplus store. This time, it was just my Dad, with no partners, who bought the business.
He named it G.I. Joe’s, and that was the beginning.
This new store was again in a hospital tent. The parking lot in front was basic. Instead of blacktop, there were roofing tabs, which were narrow asphalt shingles. They were spread on the ground and clumped together, to form a mud barrier when it rained. And, in the back was the Columbia Slough, which was a deep ditch about 50 feet wide, filled with slow-moving water. Fishermen would come and fish for carp and catfish there.
Back in those days, prior to the I-5 Freeway, the business was well-situated to take advantage of traffic going to and from the Interstate Bridge between Portland and Vancouver. G.I. Joe’s was the first store on the Oregon side.
I believe that this unique location, a few miles away from Vancouver, was one of the major reasons for G.I. Joe’s initial success. With Washington having sales tax and Oregon not, the store had such great appeal for Vancouver residents.
The merchandise included an array of army/navy surplus, which was also a draw. As my brother pointed out to me, there was a lack of consumer goods after the war and quite a demand for government issued items that could be used for outdoor recreation. Today, we would call these items sporting goods, like sleeping bags, canteens, and packs. This merchandise really pulled people in the door.
Cheap cigarettes were a draw too. That was way before any Surgeon General’s warnings appeared on cigarette packs. In those days, smoking cigarettes was thought to be relaxing, with no ill effects. Customers would buy many cartons at a time and employees at the front counter would tie them together with string from an overhead dispenser.
Very soon, the hospital tent was replaced by a small, wood-frame building. There was the G.I. Joe’s sign at the top of the roof ridgeline over the entrance, and a sign advertising the current price of a carton of cigarettes, along with other sales signs on the front.
What I remember about the inside of the store in the early years, were the aisles of bins, filled with G.I. surplus treasures. One bin was filled with small bottles of insect repellent, rather like large bottles of vanilla extract. One Saturday morning when I was 8 or 9, I went to work with Dad. He told me to “neaten” the insect repellent bin. First, I wiped of the bottles. Next, I gathered the bottles that were lying haphazardly on top of each other and stood them up, pulling them into one corner of the bin. I thought I had done such a good job!
Then, my father came by and I got my first lesson in retail. He told me to make sure the bottles were clean, but to mess them up again, so that it looked like there was more merchandise. Cleaning in the store was not at all like helping Mom clean our house!
(If the story ends here on your computer, please click on "Older Post" below, to read Parts II through V, Dedication and List of Sources.)
