For nearly a century, a gas station standing at the corner of S.E. 416th Street and Highway 169 has served motorists traveling from Black Diamond and Enumclaw – even before the 1933 construction of the Kummer Bridge that directly connected the two towns. For over half that time, the station was owned by the Chambers family, so the intersection became known as Chambers Corner. During the Chamber years, the station sold Standard Oil of California products later rebranded Chevron.
Robert John Chambers, better known as Bob Chambers, opened the business around 1925. The exact date is lost to time. His son, Robert Elmer Chambers, also called Bob took over in 1948 and operated the business for the next three decades. The name Bob’s Service and later, Bob’s Service Station didn’t change until the business was sold in Sept. 1979, after 54 years of continuous operation by the Chambers family. Since November 1993 it has been owned by Naginder and Serene Dhami who live above their convenience store and gas station. Today the same business under Stop-N-Shop in a building much expanded from its 1925 roots.
The elder Bob Chambers (Robert John) was born in Ontario, Canada in 1876. His parents were of Scottish descent. We will refer to him as Bob Sr., and their second child, Robert Elmer as Bob Jr., even though they weren’t seniors and juniors, having different middle names. Bob Sr. married Maybelle Embree in 1902. The couple spawned four children, Violet May, Robert Elmer, Frederick Roland, and Lottie Thelma. Shortly after the birth of Lottie, the Chambers children’s mother, Maybelle died from tuberculosis.
At age 13, Bob Jr., together with siblings Violet and Fred ran away from home and supported themselves by working odd jobs while traveling from town to town in Canada. At age 15, Bob Jr. learned how to fight. By age 17, he excelled as a pugilist and began boxing professionally under the ring name, “Mazouk,” a nickname given by friends. One story suggests the name came from Bob’s habit of saying, “I’m from Missouri – you’ll have to show me.” Or perhaps it’s derived from the 18th-century Mazouk dance comprised of a short sequence of distinctive foot movements, like boxers often display.
Meanwhile, his widowed father, Bob Sr. moved from Kootenay, British Columbia to Washington State in 1922. Around 1925, Bob Sr. settled in Enumclaw where he acquired property on the southeast corner of S.E. 416th about halfway between Enumclaw and Krain. Bob Jr. followed his father to the U.S. in 1927 where he learned the trade of repairing and certifying gasoline pumps. It was a smart career move as the number of vehicles was growing rapidly and gas stations were popping up everywhere. Bob Jr. made a living fixing and calibrating service stations, while the property his father owned increasingly became known as Chambers Corner.
At the time of this Aug. 17, 1939 photo, Bob’s Service Station was in its second decade of business. The picture comes from King County Assessor records, managed by Puget Sound Regional Archives in Eastgate. Photo enhancements were undertaken by Boomer Burnham, a Tahoma High School teacher and entrepreneur who operates www.BoomersPhotography.com.
Facts about the life and times of the two Bob Chambers come courtesy of Donna Brathovde, a Ravensdale research specialist, plus Penny Reich, who wrote a short biography about her grandfather (Bob Jr.) several months before his death in February 1984.
Next week, more about the Chambers family and the business they operated at Chambers Corner.
