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Gig Harbor Now and Then | A glimpse of Gig Harbor in the 1970s

Posted on June 16th, 2025 By: Greg Spadoni

Our previous Gig Harbor Now and Then column had to do with two very famous people who filmed scenes in Gig Harbor for a major motion picture in 1972. We gave a review of the movie of sorts, noting that “Hit!” starring Billy Dee Williams and Richard Pryor, isn’t such a good picture. Richard and Billy Dee are as good as always, but the script isn’t up to their abilities.

A pretty good clue that the movie isn’t great entertainment is the copyright date on the disc. If it had been a better film, Paramount Pictures wouldn’t have waited until 2012 to issue it on DVD.

The movie isn’t so good, but it preserved some really interesting scenes of 1972 Gig Harbor. This week we take six screenshots of those scenes and compare them with photos taken in 2025 from approximately the same spots. The movie camera had a wider lens than the camera used to take the Now pictures, so the images are not entirely comparable, but they are for the most part.

There are a number of screenshots that can’t be replicated today because the locations are so different from the way they were in 1972. The Stutz Shell Oil dock is the most notable because it’s no longer there. That’s too bad, because there is a series of shots of Richard Pryor next to the warehouse that would’ve been terrific to compare with today.

Building anger

In the movie, outside the Stutz warehouse, Richard disagrees with Billy Dee, who is sitting in a stolen truck, about to drive through Gig Harbor to round up the rest of his motley hit squad. They need to speed off in the fishing boat Victory before the bad guys chasing them arrive in town to thwart their plans. Richard tells Billy Dee that the boat isn’t yet ready for such a long voyage to France (yes, France).

But does Billy Dee listen? No. And that ticks Richard off.

As Billy Dee starts to back up the truck, Richard gets REALLY angry at him.

Billy Dee had top billing in the picture, so got to do whatever he wanted. What he wanted to do right then (and ultimately did) was drive the truck around the west side business district of Gig Harbor to find the rest of his cohorts, get them on board the Victory, and shove off for Europe. He knew some bad guys would soon find them in the Harbor if they didn’t leave in a rush, no matter what Richard had to say about the condition of the boat.

Leaving the Stutz Shell Oil warehouse, he headed for the intersection of Harborview Drive and Pioneer Way. That brings us to our first Now and Then photo comparison. (We were unable to replicate the snow.)

Rounding up the usual suspects

While frantically looking for the rest of his hit squad, Billy Dee finds one of them at the Gig Harbor post office on Uddenberg Lane and quickly escorts her to the truck he’s driving. (Today that building is the site of two businesses, B’s Bagels & Butters and Better Gym.)

Billy Dee’s mad dash to round up his posse was held up by slow traffic in front of the barber shop in the Peninsula Shopping Center.

That’s the old bowling alley, Gig Harbor Lanes, straight ahead in the Then picture, taken from in front of the barber shop in the Peninsula Shopping Center. Now photo by Greg Spadoni. Then photo from “Hit!” DVD, copyright 2012 by Paramount Pictures.

Doubling back the way he came, Billy Dee spots another member of his vigilante squad at the foot of Pioneer Way. He pulled over to the sidewalk next to Gig Harbor Hardware, and left the truck pointing in the opposite direction of traffic flow. (Maybe a Gig Harbor Now and Then reader can identify the man in red getting into the blue car.)

Billy Dee leads another geriatric member of his vigilante hit squad back to the truck at the intersection of Pioneer Way and Harborview Drive. That’s the Harbor Shell Service Station across the intersection, which is now the Gig Harbor Fly Shop (sport fishing supplies). The Novak Building, on the right, does not yet have the brick and concrete planter barrier in front of it. Now photo by Greg Spadoni. Then photo from “Hit!” DVD, copyright 2012 by Paramount Pictures.

Shel sells Shell by the sea shore

With the rest of his crew rounded up, Billy Dee brought them back to the Shel Stutz Shell Oil dock to board the Gig Harbor fishing boat Victory for their quick and easy voyage to France (from Gig Harbor!). (Isn’t it neat that Stutz’s first name was Shel, and he sold Shell Oil products?) The Tides Tavern is the primary subject of the Now photo.

Four members of Billy Dee’s hit squad walking down the Stutz Shell Oil dock to board the fishing boat Victory. (Yes, that is indeed one of the Monroe brothers from the TV series Green Acres on the left.) The Tides Tavern (officially 3-Fingered Jack’s Tides Tavern at the time) is in the background. While still the same building, it’s changed quite a bit. Now photo by Greg Spadoni. Then photo from “Hit!” DVD, copyright 2012 by Paramount Pictures.

As the co-conspirators make their way down the dock, the Babich netshed and the old Co-Op building take the center background position.

The Babich netshed and the old Co-Op building take the center background position in this screenshot. The Babich house is in the upper right corner, and in the Then photo, the Standard Oil tanks are behind and to the right of the Co-Op building. Now photo by Greg Spadoni. Then photo from “Hit!” DVD, copyright 2012 by Paramount Pictures.

A Hollywood ending

That is the end of our Now and Then photo series from the 1973 movie “Hit!,” but we’ll add one more screenshot to complete this subject. With the vicious execution squad on board, and a cloud of gray diesel exhaust blowing out of the stack, Don Gilich’s fishing boat Victory pulls away from the Stutz Shell Oil dock, beginning its voyage to France to kill do-badders.

Barely escaping the clutches of the bad guys who were chasing them, the Victory and its crew of drug dealer killers leaves Gig Harbor, destination: France. “Hit!” DVD copyright 2012 by Paramount Pictures.

Sharp-eyed readers (and we must have some of those) will notice that’s one of the pictures from our previous column. It’s being run again because it’s the perfect photo for concluding this discussion. It symbolizes both the end of the (fictional) anti-drug lord hit squad’s time in Gig Harbor, and the end of the (real) Hollywood film crew’s work in the town. It also signals the end of this column’s subject, which makes it one of those rare and wonderful three-fers.

Possible new subject

At first today’s subject was going to be called Then and Now Photo Comparisons, with the Then picture being first, and the Now picture below it. But because this column’s title is Gig Harbor Now and Then, it seemed a slight bit less confusing to call it Now and Then Photo Comparisons, and put the current picture on top.

Makes sense so far.

In what is probably going to turn out to be a mistake, I just now got an idea for another take on the comparing pictures theme.

This is the new idea: How about a full column of pictures called Now and Now Photo Comparisons? Here’s an example:

This is a sample of what a column of Now and Now picture comparisons would look like. Photo (singular because, let’s face it, they’re both the same) by Greg Spadoni.

Isn’t that fascinating … interesting … incredibly stupid?

I at least want credit for prefacing this bit with the admission that it was “probably going to turn out to be a mistake.”

Clarification

Just to be sure the record is clear, the taller-than-the-Mountaineer Tree that we at Spadoni Brothers took down on the Key Peninsula in 1990, which Tonya Strickland mentions in her new Two in Tow & On the Go story, was already dead. We didn’t kill it. It was a 230-foot snag leaning towards SR 302, so had to come down before it fell across the highway, which it definitely would have eventually. And the majority of it was so rotten that it couldn’t be used for anything.

Speaking of that dead Key Peninsula old-growth tree, it would probably make a very good Gig Harbor Now and Then subject. I’ll make a note of it.

Next time

In the next installment of Gig Harbor Now and Then, for the third column in a row, the Gig Harbor commercial fishing industry will be featured (or is it sub-featured?) as a related subject. For a change of pace, however, it will not be in association with violent (though fictional), vigilante killers. Instead, it will concern the actual nuts & bolts of the fishing business. Literally. Appropriately, it’s titled The Lost Machinist.

As noted by Ted Kenney in his January 30 story on the new granite pavers at Ancich Waterfront Park, the Gig Harbor Commercial Fishermen’s Civic Club has recently honored local machinist Howard Cox with an engraved notation on one of the tiles. It’s a well-deserved recognition of Cox’s legendary mechanical contributions to the success of the town’s commercial fishing fleet.

But Howard Cox did not occupy that role by himself.

Because of the passing of too many generations, another well-deserving contributor to the success of Gig Harbor’s commercial fishing fleet has been entirely forgotten. On June 30, Gig Harbor Now and Then is going to un-forget him.

Every indication suggests that the man was Howard Cox’s equal in machine work, metal fabrication, and inventiveness. And it is a fact that without him, Cox’s machine shop on Harborview Drive would never have existed.

Doesn’t that sound like somebody who deserves equal recognition?

— Greg Spadoni, June 16, 2025

Greg Spadoni of Olalla has had more access to local history than most life-long residents. During 25 years in road construction working for the Spadoni Brothers, his first cousins, twice removed, he traveled to every corner of the Gig Harbor and Key Peninsulas, taking note of many abandoned buildings, overgrown farms, and roads that no longer had a destination. Through his current association with the Harbor History Museum in Gig Harbor as the unofficial Chief (and only) Assistant to Linda McCowen, the Museum’s primary photo archive volunteer, he regularly studies the area’s largest collection of visual history. Combined with the print history available at the museum and online, he has uncovered countless stories of long-forgotten local people and events.