Former Bon Marche (Columbia River Mecantile)

Longview, WA

Longview was built as a planned community in the 1920s by the Long-Bell Lumber company. The company opened a department store called the Columbia River Mercantile at the southwest corner of Broadway and Commerce in 1923. Locals called the store The Merk. By the 1930s national chains including JC Penney, Montgomery Ward, and Sears had also opened stores in downtown Longview. The Long-Bell Lumber company was purchased by International Paper in the 1950s. It may have been around this time that The Bon Marche expanded into Longview by purchasing The Merk.

Wards moved out of downtown to the nearby Triangle Mall in the 1960s. This mall was also anchored by a Newberry's variety store. Woolworths remained downtown. I visited the Longview Bon Marche in the late 1970s and early 1980s. One thing I remember about the store is that it had up escalators but down stairways where the down escalators would normally be located. I also remember that the escalators had round handrails that looked like oversized vacuum cleaner hoses. At one time the downtown Yakima Bon Marche had similar handrails on its up escalators.

The Bon, Penney's and Sears moved from downtown Longview to Three Rivers Mall in Kelso in the 1980s. The former Bon Marche store in downtown Longview has been turned into a mixture of shops and offices. I noticed that the escalators have been removed. And yes,the sign on the front of the building now says "The Merk".

More information about the history of Longview is available in John. M. McClelland Jr.'s book "R. A. Long's Planned City - The Story of Longview" published by the Longview Publishing Company, Longview, Washington, 1976.

This photograph was taken in January 2005 facing southwest.