Part One : How The Cokinos Brothers Came to D.C.

Once upon a time nine children grew up in a large house in a tiny Greek village called Agulinitsa. The village was very close to the sea and not far from Olympia where the ancient games were held. The family had olive groves and farmland nearby, but three of the brothers, including my grandfather Pete, and his brothers Adam and Alec decided America held more opportunity. 

The first time I visited Agulinitsa in 1988, it just boggled my mind to think of how Pete and his brothers got out of Dodge in the early 1900s. I pictured them riding donkeys or perhaps walking over the mountains, carrying their things in a rucksack. My vivid imagination and horrible sense of history both overlooked the fact of a railroad.  Years later I realized I had missed seeing the tiny station the first time I was there. It was the size of a bus stop. Pete and his brothers only had to walk a few blocks to catch a train to the port of Patras.

Digging into history, I discovered that our cousin James was actually the first Cokinos to arrive from Agulinitsa.  He landed in Wilmington, Delaware in 1903  and worked in the candy business there until his cousin Pete joined him two years later. They moved to Washington soon after and opened a confectionary called the Sugar Bowl at 721 8th Street SE. The two lived above the shop and made candy and ice cream in the basement by hand until there was enough money to bring over more family. In 1908 they sent for Adam and opened another store at 1203 H Street NE. The next year Pete and James moved to H Street to make room for James' brother Daniel and Pete's brother Alec. 

Business was booming.

Alec and Pete at 1203 H Street NE abt 1910

The crew soon opened another candy store at 909 41/2 Street SE which I have now learned was not a typo in the DC street directory, but an actual thing. Creative math was part of a 1905 plan to further organize the city on an alphabetical and numerical grid. This street and the neighborhood were eventually wiped out in the 1950s in the name of “urban renewal,”  but now the area has a new baseball stadium and a revitalized waterfront. A nearby historic plaque remembers 4 ½ Street as a major shopping destination in its day. 

4 1/2 Street SW  (Library of Congress) 

In 1910 the Cokinos Brothers opened the last store of their empire.  This one was at 924 9th Street NW - a block from where the ever growing Greek community had just bought property to build St Sophia's church at 8th and L. (Smart cookies, eh?)