Donald Glover

Horizon was giving away its remaining stock for free last weekend on 10th Ave (Image: CHS Facebook Group)

Let’s close this current chapter of neighborhood classics saying goodbye. Another of the longest running businesses on Capitol Hill closed quietly last weekend. It wasn’t a restaurant, cafe, or bar.

Horizon Books was proudly established on Capitol Hill 53 years ago making it contemporaneous with fellow class of 1971 business licensees Country Doctor Community Health Clinic, architect Roger Newell, and Vogue Coiffure Beauty Salon on our list of the oldest businesses in the area a few years back.

The bookseller that made its name on Capitol Hill long before Elliott Bay Book Company was transplanted to 10th ve quietly turned the page and liquidated its stock last weekend, handing out free books to anybody who stopped by its underground 10th Ave space home to “the largest and finest used books collections in Seattle.”

CHS last visited Horizon in 2018 as Brandon Letsinger was taking over from Horizon founder — and extremely interesting fella — Donald Glover as the business transitioned from its longtime home on 15th Ave E into the underground, auto row-era studio space where it spent its final years. Letsinger is an interesting fella, too, as he made Horizon the central hub for media collective Cascadia Underground, a bioregionalist anti-oppression network that Letsinger helped found.

When we checked in, Letsinger was getting a handle on the Sisyphean task of sorting through tens of thousands of books Glover acquired over the decades. “We figured that if we went through and processed a box of books per day, we’ve got more than a decade’s worth of stuff,” Letsinger said in 2018.

A decade ago, Glover and Horizon moved on from its home on 15th Ave E that was, well, actually a home. The 1922-built house managed to survive in the middle of the commercial strip and make a home for the bookshop, but by the mid 2010s, its old school Capitol Hill property holder was ready to move on, listing the parcel for sale by owner. Arno Prinz wanted $1.25 million. “It’s not expensive,” Prinz said. “The lots behind it sold for almost $1 million. There has been good interest in the property. People are looking for loans and they are not easy to get.” It took three years to sell. The buyer? In 2013, Ada’s Technical Books moved in and has grown with locations now across the Hill and Seattle.

Horizon and its shelves and boxes of old and rare books settled in beneath 10th Ave and grew its business online but still stayed connected to the neighborhood above.

“The other new revolutionary used book technology was we started putting out a sign,” Letsinger told CHS six years ago. “We get great walk-in traffic. We’re reconnecting with all the people who grew up with Horizon Books, [as well as] new people moving here looking for something authentic.”

With last week’s giveaway, it looks like Horizon Books will end its story on Capitol Hill. But you never know.There have been some cliffhanger surprises along the way. Horizon “closed” before in 2009. It also “closed” in 2017. Like any good story, there is always a chance for a sequel.

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