Sam Weller’s Bookstore is preparing to close it’s venerable old bookstore on Main Street in Salt Lake City. For those of us who love books, this is just another sign that we’re way out of tune with the rest of the crowd. I’ve spent virtually thousands of dollars at Sam Weller’s over the years – $2000 alone on an original set of the “War of the Rebellion” series about two decades ago. Sam Weller’s is an old-fashioned bookstore, with shelving filling many rooms on several floors. They have wonderful history and genealogy sections, as well as books on just about any other topic you can think of. Not only will you find new books, but tens of thousands of old volumes are found throughout the store.
Now its about to become part of history… I’m really sad to see the store go, just as I was saddened years ago when John Todd, and his Shorey’s Bookstore closed in Seattle. Here again, I spent thousands of dollars with Mr. Todd, and enjoyed every moment of it. Many of those volumes can now be found in the Heritage Quest Research Library in Sumner, Washington… But I’m wandering here…
I caught a few words about the store-closing on television this evening. It sounds like people just aren’t purchasing books the way they used to, and the current generation of Wellers feel that they have to make changes to survive in today’s market. So another old-fashioned bookstore is about to bite the dust. Too bad…
Read more about the Sam Weller’s Bookstore closing in the March 12, 2009 edition of The Salt Lake Tribune. And a longer article here.
If I’m reading this correctly, they’re not closing down altogether. The SL Tribune article say, “the search is now on for a new and hopefully better location somewhere in the downtown area.” So, my trips to SLC in the future will just include slightly longer walks to get a Sam Weller used book fix!
As a dinosaur, I am always sadden to read about events such as the closing of the book store, yet I did find some relieve after reading the entire article to discover they are not totally dead but just in need to relocate. Much of today’s world is of a different breed than what I learned growing up and living in the west. Even in the research of our family lives the neophytes seem to believe that a click of the mouse will do most all of the work for them. This is getting truer each day yet there is one item missing which I am pleased to have enjoyed over the decades of research, and this is the touch, smell and sight of the original records as found in court houses, churches, and libraries. This is also what the old, large books stores use to offer and that is a shame to loose also. I am glad to have enjoyed there offering for many years and discovered once I moved to a small, rural
settlement in western Iowa that I needed to travel far to enjoy those pleasure again. With the closing of the old places, less folks will have that option and for me that is a loss. Thank goodness many court houses are still going with open access, so next week I think I will enjoy several days of just traveling about and searching in some old court house records for a few names and dates.
Thanks for the news and I am grateful this store is just shrinking and not dying.
norm
The papers give the impression that Sam Wellers is just relocating… According to what I’ve seen on television, it’s far more than that. I watched Shorey’s go through this same kind of evolution – and it eventually died.