The Pioneer Discount Marketplace of Seattle
In an era of high prices, the Seattle Variety Store promised relief by flooding the local market with affordable, second-hand household goods.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Attention! No one need sleep cold if it were generally known that T. P. Freeman, of the Seattle Variety Store, has recently received and has for sale, at astonishingly low prices, a large lot of second-hand mattresses, blankets, pillows and bedsteads. Also a large lot of new goods of the same kind. He wishes also to call attention to his stock of house furnishing hardware, crockery, glassware, stoves, furniture, coal oil, etc. All for sale at ridiculously low prices. Call and see his stock.
“No one need sleep cold if it were generally known that T. P. Freeman... has recently received... a large lot of second-hand mattresses, blankets, pillows and bedsteads.”
Long before big-box retailers or online resale platforms, frontier Seattle relied on 'variety stores' to furnish a rapidly growing population. This 1876 advertisement captures the raw, essential need for affordable housing supplies in a city where, much like today, the cost of living was a constant friction point for residents.
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