The Evanoff Gardens, owned by Dimiter and Wanda Evanoff, were located at 5445 Wayzata Blvd., “across from McCarthy’s Cafe,” approximately where the West End is today. Wanda Evanoff was the daughter of Herman Held, who had a truck farm on the north side of Wayzata Blvd. in Golden Valley.
The 1926 plat map shows property in Wanda’s name at approximately 5305 and 5353 Wayzata Blvd. (19.5 acres), and adjoining property to the east owned by Julius Evanoff at approximately 5235, 5245, 5075 Wayzata Blvd. and 1325 Utica (22.37 acres).
The 1939 directory gave the roles of the different family members:
- Anastasia was the manager of the Evanoff Garden Stand
- Cleora was a saleswoman at the Garden Stand
- Dimiter was the General Manager of Evanoff Gardens
- Wanda was the florist
- Winheld was the manager of the City Market
A 1940 ad says it’s “The eighty foot white and red stand, conveniently located on the south side of Wayzata Blvd., on the west end of the Cloverleaf a half mile from the Minneapolis city limits. Lots of room to park.” They advertised cut flowers, spring plants, perennials, honey, fruits, and vegetables. Part of the Gamble-Skogmo complex was on Evanoff land. It, and land owned by the Held family, now make up the West End.
Evanoff Gardens appears in the SLP Directory through 1954.
The photo below is of a fireworks stand located on Wayzata Blvd. in St. Louis Park, one mile west of Minneapolis. It was taken on July 3, 1941, the last year that explosive fireworks sales were legal in Minnesota. It appears that the stand normally sold flowers. Although the Evanoff site is described above as 1/2 mile west of the Minneapolis border, one mile west would put this at Hampshire Ave., and the only thing there was a rock quarry.
GAMBLES WAREHOUSE
In about 1959, Gambles-Skogmo built a regional warehouse with the address 5445 Wayzata Blvd. on land that had been part of the Evanoff property. This facility was built to serve 550 retail stores in the four-state area. In 1967 it had been recently expanded to 380,000 square feet on its 14 acres of office and warehouse space. The warehouse held appliances, hardware, sporting goods, farm implements, automotive parts, and furniture. Wayne Musgrave was the warehouse manager, and Mahlon Rotzien was the regional manager. There were 200 employees in the warehouse. Early computers handled 65,000 “flexipay” accounts, invoice receipts for three warehouses, and tracked 25,000 items. A company spokesman said that the biggest job the computer does is to automatically read and analyze cash register tapes for the Tempo stores.