City People's Mercantile

City People’s Mercantile, the first women-owned hardware/mercantile store in Seattle, was founded in 1979 by Judith Gille, Dorrie Wayenberg and Barbara Bower. Ten months later Harley Broe joined the partnership.

City People’s first location was a run-down 800 square foot retail space on 19th Avenue and East Republican in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. It soon became evident that the area was too sleepy for a business to thrive so the owners moved the store to 15th Avenue and E. Republican. Three years later they moved it again. This time across the street to 500 15th Avenue East where they operated the store for the next 17 years, in addition to opening three more stores – a garden store in Madison Valley and two more mercantile stores in Fremont and Laurelhurst.

Dorrie and Barbara moved on after a few years and new partners—Dianne Casper, Steve Magley, and Sarah Brazeau—took their places. After ten years of operation, the Fremont store was closed in December of 2000. The original Capitol Hill store was closed the following year. Our two remaining stores, City People’s Garden Store and Landscape Design in Madison Valley and City People’s Mercantile and Garden at 5440 Sand Point Way N.E. in the Laurelhurst neighborhood, are still both locally-owned and operated. We look forward to serving you soon.