G. O. Guy - Original Location

Original Location

Many modern sources give the location of the first store as the H. K. Owens / Metropole Building at Second Avenue and Yesler Way, however contemporary sources indicate that Guy's first store was actually located about two blocks south, at Occidental Avenue and Main Street. For example, Guy's January 31, 1927, obituary in the Seattle Daily Times, reads:

Mr. Guy started his drug business at the corner of Occidental Avenue and Main Street. After the great fire a year later, which demolished his store, he resumed business in a tent at First Avenue and Main Street and in 1893 occupied, at Second Avenue and Yesler Way, the present site of the drug company.

A Times article from 1934 gives further details of the several years following the fire:

Guy's first thought was for the medicines, and he saved them to establish headquarters in a first-aid tent, where he stayed until a frame building was finished at Fourth Avenue and Main Street... Later he moved to First Avenue and Main Street and, in 1893, he moved to Second Avenue and Yesler Way. There the store still stands.