The Price of a Business Failure
A telegram from creditors forces a frantic, 'regardless of cost' liquidation sale of R. Simon's men's clothing store in downtown Seattle.
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.
In compliance with a telegram from creditors to Mark Wilzinski, assignee, the entire bankrupt stock of the firm of R. Simon is to be closed out at once, regardless of cost. The stock consists of gentlemen's fine clothing, furnishing goods, hats, boots, shoes, trunks, and valises. Every article in the store, located at the northwest corner of South Second and W streets, will be marked down far below cost in plain figures. The sale commences Saturday, January 10, 1891.
“Close out the entire stock of R. Simon at once regardless of cost.”
In 1891, the public spectacle of 'assignee's sales' and bankruptcies was a grim reality for Seattle's rapidly expanding, volatile mercantile class. Today, as Seattle faces waves of storefront closures, the language of 'bankrupt stock' and 'liquidation' remains a haunting echo of the city's perpetual boom-and-bust cycle.
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