Sam Weller’s Zion Bookstore8212;a Main Street staple8212;is moving. However, bibliophiles do not need to start mourning in the streets. The bookstore is NOT closing (thank you, sweet heaven) but is leaving the location it has inhabited for nearly 40 years.
Before panicking or rioting in the streets, remember that the current location is actually the fifth that the bookstore has inhabited since opening in 1929. So, though it’s a first for this generation, it’s nothing new in the history of the Zion Bookstore.
Times are tough for booksellers. With the proliferation of mega-bookstores such as Borders and Barnes & Noble and Web sites such as Amazon dominating the market, smaller, independent bookstores are having a tough time. Although Sam Weller’s is doing well, it has felt the pressure of the economic downturn.
Luckily for us, the bookstore is staying in the downtown area, enabling students without cars to easily access it. The new premises have not yet been settled upon, but there is an advantage to all of this8212;there’s a massive sale going on until the store moves.
Sam Weller’s was founded by German immigrant Gustav Weller and was originally known as Zion’s Bookstore. The bookstore scraped its way through the Great Depression, moving twice in the downtown area.
After some prodding, Gustav’s son, Sam, took over after World War II, lending his name to the store a few decades later. Sam Weller worked hard to pull the bookstore out of debt and establish it as a strong business. It moved to the current location in the David Keith Building in 1961, having finally “made it.”
Unfortunately, the building caught fire in 1972, and Sam Weller was only able to remove a certain amount of books before firefighters wouldn’t allow him back into the burning building. Merely two days later, the bookstore reopened in another building and was eventually able to return to its old, repaired haunt. That’s perseverance in the face of disaster.
Anyone who has been into Sam Weller’s knows it’s a three-story affair where one can easily get lost, with several rooms branching off of the basement that enable patrons to get entirely caught up in the literary world. With a gallery dedicated to fiction, a large room to biographies, a vast mystery and pulp fiction collection and too many other variations to list, Sam Weller’s is a marvel among bookstores. However, it has a small problem8212;it’s just too big.
Sam Weller’s is overflowing with books, and there are too many of them to take along8212;that’s where the sale comes in. Until the date of the official move, which is unknown, Sam Weller’s is “offering all used books and most rare books at 25 percent off,” according to a press release. That’s an awesome deal for book lovers, even if it means losing the wonderful coffee-and-old-books-scented store that we all know and love.
New books will continue to arrive and be kept in stock, but Sam Weller’s is a mecca of rare books, with millions of titles available in the store. Don’t let the opportunity for obtaining some good ones elude you.
Sam Weller’s Zion Bookstore is located at 254 S. Main St., across the street from the Gallivan Plaza TRAX station. Go visit and support your local independent bookstore.
