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Bartell's Triangle store. A two story store containing a soda fountain. It was one of the last traditional soda fountains that stayed until 1980. This site is where Westlake Park stands today.

(source: Wikipedia under public domain)

Bartell's to be sold to Rite Aid

As the city of Seattle has seen many of it's original examples of traditions slip as the Emerald City has become a city that is more influenced from others that aren't native to the city or the state, many of the cities origins disappear. This is the latest one.

Just a year after Washington statehood was declared, Bartell's, a local drug store chain was started that became a major regional drug store chain covering the Puget Sound area for 130 years.

In October, the company announced that it would sell to Rite Aid, a company who is teetering on bankruptcy itself for $95 million, a bargain since the Belltown store made $500 million.

Drug store mergers haven't done well for the area. When the Thrifty/Payless merger happened, many strip malls were empty as the result of closures that happened from Pay N Save locations (a major former local drug store chain acquired by Thrifty in the mid 1980's) being shut down.