Started by Robert Allen Sprouse and Fred Reitz as a five-and-dime in 1909 in Tacoma, the headquarters moved to Portland in 1919. In its heyday, the store had almost 400 stores in 11 western states. But by the 1980s, variety stores were losing ground. The chain attempted to rebrand itself as Sprouse! in the late ’80s. But the company soon began selling off stores, closing the last of them in 1994.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Started by Robert Allen Sprouse and Fred Reitz as a five-and-dime in 1909 in Tacoma, the headquarters moved to Portland in 1919. In its heyday, the store had almost 400 stores in 11 western states. But by the 1980s, variety…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":113,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-forgotten-retail","tag-sprouse-reitz","wpcat-6-id"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n