Collection is open for research.
The collection consists of scrapbooks and shareholder records for Schwabacher Company and Gardner and Company, family and company histories, and commemorative newspaper editions celebrating Gardners' Seventy-Fifth and One Hundredth anniversaries.
Newspaper articles, photographs, correspondence, financial and sales records, ledgers and time sheets as well as deeds, leases, promissory notes and bank records are also included.
The Gardner and Co. department store was originally founded in 1860 by Abe, Lewis, and Sigmund Schwabacher, three brothers from San Francisco, under the name Schwabacher Brothers Store. It served as the primary department store in Eastern Washington for many years, serving early settlers and Idaho miners among others. In the 1880s, H.A. Gardner and J.M. Fitzgerald joined the business and the name changed to Schwabacher Co. In 1909, the pair purchased the business and renamed it Gardner and Co. due to the legal and financial implications of continuing to use the Schwabacher name. The building was torn down in 1910 and the existing structure was built in its current location on the northeast corner of Main Street and Third Avenue. The company came under the management of Pioneer Investment Co. in 1970 after the retirement of longtime president and general manager, Ward Gardner. In 1976 the company was purchased again by John D. Donat of Boise, Idaho, a returning Walla Walla resident. After 120 years of business, the store closed in 1980, and the building was sold to Bank of the West.