Several notes in the Issaquah Independent in December of 1908 spoke of a new store coming to Fall City… see inset. It does not seem to have lasted long, since in 1909 Robert and Mecie Burns bought the Snoqualmie Valley Cooperative Store, to save the investment they had made in the venture. The Cooperative stood on the west half of the current building site. They named it Burns & Son - The One Price Store, shown above. The Son referred to Perry Burns, and One Price meant no dickering on price. Robert Burns, shown below, was a farmer at heart and didn't care for dealing with the public.
Several items in our collection commemorate the Burns and Son Store…including a 1916 calendar and several journals in which Robert Burns recorded sales, invoices, customer accounts and store expenses.
About 1921, Puget Sound Power & Light began serving Fall City with electricity, and once the power lines appeared, there was a rush to get houses and businesses wired. Jesse Kelley had some experience with wiring during the years 1910 thru 1915 when he worked for Puget Power and the Harshman Telephone Company. In 1922, he quit his job in Pete Jorgensen's blacksmith shop and set out on his own after setting up a mini-shop in a corner of Kirkpatrick's Confectionary Store. By the fall of 1922, business was good and a shop was needed with a place to store supplies. Three blocks west on River Street, his father-in-law, Robert Burns, was going out of the general merchandise business with a store building for sale. They settled on a price and in October 1922, "Burns & Son, The One Price Store" became "Fall City Electric Shop".
By 1944, Jesse and Artie Kelley were ready to retire. They sold Jesse's business and building to Artie's cousins, Howard and Clara Stow. As part of the deal, they "traded houses" so the Stows could be close to their business. The Kelleys moved to the Stow house on SE 44th Street.
Howard Stow converted the shop to a Hardware Store, the first in Fall City.
This undated photo shows the well-stocked interior of Stow Hardware, with Howard Stow behind the counter. After ten years in the hardware business, Howard accepted an offer of $25,000 from Jack McClymont to purchase the building and business.
In 1976, McClymont sold the building and business to Dave Schiesser, who re-opened it as a True Value franchise, renaming it "Fall City Hardware." Ten years later, Schiesser kept the building but sold the business to Jerry Mortensen, who in turn sold it to Bob Woods in 1992. Shortly thereafter, the hardware business closed and the building sat empty. Schiesser sold the building to Ian Macrae in 1993.
Over the years since then, it has housed law offices, a real estate agent, an antique store, a video store, and vintage sales outlets.
(Much of the material is excerpted from Jack's History of Fall City.)