The old Palmer Trading Post on Dahlia Street almost got the ax. Windows were boarded up, foundation unstable and the chipped and cracked paint had failed.
“Most people when asked about the trading post didn’t know a thing about it,” Johnson said. “It had fallen victim to disrepair.”
 J.J. HARRIER/Frontiersman Delena Johnson stands outside the old Palmer Trading Post, now the Dahlia Street Market, which re-opened for business last week. Three new businesses are leased inside the remodeled colony building. |
“I tend to buy property that has some sort of value to the community and develop it back up,” she said.
Johnson bought the two-level colony remnant for $210,000. Two years and $1 million of her own dollars later, Johnson finally has reconstructed the old Palmer Trading Post, now called Dahlia Street Market, and is ready to share it with the community.
Johnson moved to Palmer in 1990 after a long stint in Talkeetna. Her family would make its way to Palmer for fishing and groceries back then, and she fell in love with the quaint appeal of the city.
“I always felt a connection with this town,” she said.
There was rumor of Matanuska Maid showing interest buying the old building, then the National Park Service wanted to make it a federal landmark because it had historical value. Johnson agreed, but also felt the wood structure was salvageable and work began preserving the integrity of the trading post while taking on its renovation.
Before she began, Johnson said the community was torn about the structure, which holds sentimental and historical value but had become and eyesore.
“People said to burn it down, tear it down, keep it the way it is. Everyone put in their two-cents,” she said.
When Johnson decided to put life back into the old historical district’s trading post, that began what she always does when she buys property — work hard. As the days, weeks and months passed, curious residents came by to check on Johnson’s progress, with older visitors telling her an intriguing story or two.
“The amazing thing was these old-timers who would come by and offer me their personal stories with the old trading post building,” she said. “They’d say, ‘I learned how to smoke out back from here,’ or, ‘So-and-so’s wedding in 1959 was here.’ It became evident there was some history in this thing.”
After colonists moved the trading post to its current location across the street in the late 1930s, the old post became a community center, later housing a pharmacy, laundry facilities and a series of other bought and sold businesses before shutting down and becoming a forgotten structure in 1982.
Johnson said the community focus and memories inspired her to work harder on restoring the building that almost was bulldozed down. She recruited local architect Gary Wolf to help bring the building up to code, lending him the original blueprint plans.
“We wanted to stay as true to the original as possible, but modernize it as well,” Johnson said. “Gary is wonderful. Providing access at both sides of this structure was a challenge and I think we did it.”
Visits to the Palmer Historical Society led Johnson to archived photos of the original structure, some showing the construction of the original trading post in 1935, the hustle and bustle of the colonists inside shopping for canned goods and 5-cent produce, and pictures of the busy Dahlia Street activity.
Fran Seager Boss, cultural resource director for the Mat-Su Borough, lent a hand in providing a history of Dahlia Street, the trading post and preservation tips.
“What I love is the multi-paned windows, true to the colonists design,” Boss said.
Inside, Johnson’s crew widened doorways, put in new paneling, sanded, nailed, stapled and glued for months. The results? An amazingly modern two-story house that is historically quaint.
Johnson has rented space for three tenants at Dahlia Street Market: Garden Gate (gardening retail), Red Beat (catering) and Bodies Wisdom (message studio).
“The place really follows similarities through the years,” Johnson said. “I’d like to see it have life again and I think these new stores will help that along.”
With the 75th anniversary of Palmer and President Roosevelt’s New Deal approaching, many like Johnson feel beefing up the historic district in downtown Palmer is overdue, with a few dilapidated and run-down buildings still in need of a face lift around Gulkana and Fireweed streets, where many of the colonist churches reside.
Johnson said she’s even been eying remodeling the Matanuska Maid creamery the state has on the market.
“I’ll do it for free,” she said.
Contact J.J. Harrier at valleylife@frontiersman.com, or 352-2269.
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