COLVILLE – While the streets of Colville were quiet, the town’s newest bookstore was alight with excitement.
Older residents and young readers flipped through pages and hugged stacks of books at Seekers Bookshop’s soft opening Nov. 1., located on Main Street. Owners Lisa and Buddy Wilson said they started the store to create a community hub for book clubs, author signings and other events that foster connection and engagement.
The bookstore will be open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday to Sunday.
“We love bookstores. They’re a good place to hang out, and it seemed like that was one of the things that Colville needed,” Buddy Wilson said.
Lisa Wilson said the bookstore offers a mix of genres for readers of all ages, including a section featuring meditation books and items like crystals, rocks and gems.
Buddy Wilson said they bought the building two years ago and had to remodel it from the ground up.
The structure, built in the early 1900s, required major reinforcement work that took up the first six months before renovations for the bookstore could begin, he said.
“The Colville hotel was on the other side; it burned down back in the ’80s, but they put some steel beams in here and as soon as we touched anything, we had to completely reinforce the whole structure,” Buddy Wilson said.
While the bookstore is complete, Buddy Wilson said they are still remodeling a room in the back that will include a community space for book clubs and a kitchen where they plan to host cooking classes for residents.
He said Lisa Wilson often travels to Spokane for cooking classes and hopes to offer something similar locally.
“We have a lot of foodies around here too, and so we’re looking to offer the kitchen with the kind of equipment that would appeal to someone with a real creative cooking sense,” Buddy Wilson said.
Nevaeh Bayne, a music teacher at Colville High School, said she’s been excited for the bookstore for months.
She said she had to stop herself from grabbing more books and limited herself to the six she was already carrying.
“I moved here in second grade, and I moved away for college, and living in Spokane, you know, there are so many options in larger bookstores. And I just felt like I really got to explore what kind of books I liked and all of the reading,” Bayne said.
“So just getting a bookstore that has a variety of books is something that our community has really needed,” she continued.
Bayne said there is one other bookstore in the area – Coffee & Books in Town Center – but its selection is limited and leans toward religious titles.
“If this can connect people to more books and more worldviews in a small town, I think that that’s super important for the world we live in today,” she said.
