Doris Dilday carries an arrangement of orange, red and yellow stargazer lilies Wednesday as she prepares to move her Donner Flower Shop from downtown back to the Newport neighborhood on Bend's west side, where the flower shop was founded in 1911 as Riverside Florists.

Donner Flower Shop is celebrating its 100th anniversary by moving back to its 1911 roots.

Over the next few days, the flower shop will be moving from its current location at 909 N.W. Wall St. in downtown Bend and reopening April 1 at 605 Newport Ave., according to owner Doris Dilday, who was 39 when she went to work at Donner Flower Shop as a part-time sales clerk in 1990.

“I started out working one day a week, then it became full time, and eventually I became an owner,” said Dilday, 60, who is part of the shop’s long history of female owners of the shop.

Dilday, 60, bought the business in 1999 with Irene Chandler, who retired and left the area in 2005, according to Dilday.

“We bought the business from JoAnn Lawrence, who had it for 33 years. She retired to Mexico, and she loves it there. We still keep in touch,” Dilday said.

The move takes the flower shop back to the neighborhood where it began in 1911 as Riverside Florists, which was located at 456 Newport Ave. In a way, Dilday said, the real estate crash helped make the move back to the Newport neighborhood possible by lowering the building’s price.

Records at the Des Chutes Historical Museum show Riverside Florists was under the management of Mrs. Keeney in 1917. No first name was given.

By 1929, a Bulletin newspaper ad shows Riverside Florists had moved to 861 Wall St. in downtown Bend, and later entries in the 1936 and 1937 Bend Business Directory show the flower shop was acquired by Grace Donner, who changed the name from Riverside Florists to Donner Flower Shop.

“Riverside Florists first came downtown to 861 Wall Street — that is where it is when Grace Donner takes it over,” said Kelly Cannon-Miller, director for the Des Chutes Historical Museum.

Sometime after 1946, the flower shop moved to 906 Wall St., one block north of the Tower Theatre, where Lawrence owned and operated the business from the mid-1960s until Dilday purchased it in 1999.

Bonnie Burns, a volunteer museum volunteer with the Deschutes County Historical Society, said tracing women’s business ownership is more difficult when searching records before the 1970s because women were often listed only as “Mrs. so and so” with their husbands’ names. The women’s first names were often excluded.

Dilday said she enjoyed uncovering historical information about the Donner Flower Shop and its predecessor, Riverside Florists.

“We can’t be more excited to celebrate our 100th year in business and make our move back to Newport Avenue,” Dilday said.

The new location at 605 Newport Ave. also has an interesting history, according to Dilday and documents found at the Des Chutes Historical Museum and Deschutes Public Library.

Historical documents show the original building at that address was built in 1926 as the home of the Kenwood Grocery Store and its manager, Leo Herbring.

A May 17, 1926, Bulletin article said, “The new home of the Kenwood Grocery — one of the most modern store buildings in Bend — has been completed and was formally opened today by Mr. and Mrs. Leo Herbring, managers.”

Several other businesses later occupied the building.

In 1998, Michael Houser, assistant planner for Deschutes County, wrote a letter recommending the building “should be recognized for its importance to the history of Bend and its west side, not to mention it is one of the best examples I have seen of modern commercial building from the late 1920s, with delightful craftsman style home with mission style elements.”

Despite Houser’s efforts to pursue listing the building on the National Register of Historic Places, Cannon-Miller said that didn’t happen, and the building is not registered as historic.

More recently, the building at 605 Newport Ave. housed Azila Nora Gift Shop, Dilday said.

Since she started moving into the building, Dilday said, she’s been told a room in the basement paneled in knotty pine was a speak-easy that operated underneath the grocery store during the Prohibition era, which lasted from 1920 to 1933.

“I don’t have any historical documentation that there was a speak-easy in the basement, but I think it adds to the mystique,” Dilday said.

For Dilday, working in and owning a flower shop was a big change from her prior work experience as a chimney sweep in a family business she and her former husband, Paul Dilday, founded in Bend shortly after they arrived here in 1977. But the change has been a beautiful and emotionally rewarding experience, she said.

“Being around flowers I think is just the best,” Dilday said. “Flowers are emotional. You have happy occasions like people falling in love, weddings and anniversaries, birthdays and Mother’s Day, and sad occasions such as illnesses and funerals.

“I like the fact you can be very, very personal with people,” Dilday said. “I want to know my customers. I want to know their names and have that small-town friendship.”