HistoryLink Tours

The feed store’s origins are murky. There is speculation that the building was built in the 1890s to serve as a home, while other sources say Nicholas Burke built the building in 1903 to use as a warehouse as an adjunct to his grocery store, N.J. Burke Flour & Feed, across the street. (The store was located where the modern Village Theatre now stands.) By 1930 the warehouse building was serving as a grocery store in its own right, while records from 1940 show that it was then being used as a residence.

Frank Hailstone and his sister, Nell Hailstone Falkenstein, bought the building in 1941. After a remodel, it opened in 1942 as the Hailstone Feed Store and Shell Gasoline Station. Frank, his brother James, and Frank’s brother-in-law David Lewis ran the feed store, while Nell operated the gas station. The business remained in the family until 1966. Afterward, the store continued operating under several different owners until 1990.

By 2003 the City of Issaquah owned the building and was leasing it to the Downtown Issaquah Association. The association found a 1944 picture of the structure and spent more than a quarter of a million dollars over the next three years restoring it to an approximation of its 1940s appearance. The store presently serves as a small museum and a meeting space.