Store Info

BookPeople of Moscow was founded on November 17, 1973 by Ivar Nelson and has been downtown ever since, making it one of the longest lived indie bookstores in the country. 521 S. Main is the store's second location, and hopefully, its permanent home. See the story about BookPeople's 40th birthday in 2013 published in the American Booksellers Association newsletter, Bookselling This Week: http://www.bookweb.org/node/27897

When longtime owner Robert Greene decided to retire and move to Portland in 2011 the future of the store was uncertain and a great group of bookstore supporters met regularly for months to figure out how to keep BookPeople alive. Thanks to the encouragement of these true bookpeople, the store was purchased by Steffen Werner, Nicole Werner, Walt Spurling, and Carol Price in December of 2011. In 2018, Carol purchased Walt's shares of the store. In 2023, longtime employee Breanne Pickens bought Nicole's shares of the store. Carol is the full-time managing co-owner of the store, mentoring new co-owner and co-manager Bre Pickens in her new roles and responsibilities.

The underlying business is officially named BooX Without Borders Inc., an Idaho S-corp with members Steffen Werner, Carol Price, and Bre Pickens, but the store is still called BookPeople of Moscow. Note that the store's phone number as of January 2012 is (208) 882-2669, with 2669 cleverly spelling out BOOX.

With the sale a sure thing in November of 2011, and announced publicly at 11:11 am on 11/11/2011, Robert Greene began moving his stock of mostly used books out of the store with the help of a large crew of volunteers who worked long hours for beer and pizza. Bob chose midnight on Dec. 28th, 2011, as his move out deadline. During the transition, BookPeople's new owners kept the New York Times available by stocking it at One World Cafe, and allowed the community to keep tabs on our progress posting blog entries, and by leaving the front windows uncovered and the door unlocked while we worked. The New York Times moved back to One World Cafe in 2021.

After a complete remodeling, mostly accomplished by Walt Spurling and a hugely talented crew of local folks (see list below), the newly restocked store reopened for business on February 22, 2012. An outpouring of community support even before the very first day of business got the store off to a strong start and with every community member's continuing devotion and commitment to shopping local and indie, BookPeople will survive long into the future. We celebrated our grand opening on May 17, 2012 with a big gathering of local authors who autographed their books for the crowds. A huge cake from the Moscow Food Co-op and gallons of lemonade were devoured by all.

Who helped the new owners get the store re-opened for business? It's a long list:

Dominic Wells (store clean-up, book shelving), Jonah Mix (store clean-up and book shelving), Richard Yutzy (all around handyman and guy with a big truck), John Pool (vacuuming and moral support), Jyotsna Sreenivasan (vacuuming and moral support), Kat Brown (book shelving), Pat Bower (book shelving), Pat Gilham (book shelving and organization), Kenton Bird (moral support), Gary Williams (thrift store donation run and moral support), Tom Lamar (sidewalk sweeping and moral support), Antone G. Holmquist (painting), Seneca Cummings (painting), Isaak Julye (trimwork, shelving assembly, handyman extraordinaire), Bill Bonner (counter and wooden shelving), Cece Connors (painting), Rebekka Boysen-Taylor (moral support), Keeley Mix (moral support and paper towels), Isaac Wright and Master's Touch Woodworking (bamboo shelving millwork and finishwork), Charlie Sutton (cleaning and paint prep), Andy Carr (bamboo flooring installation, CarpetMill (carpet and tile), Natural Abode (flooring and shelving materials), Trent Nelson (New York Times delivery), One World Cafe (awesome coffee and temporary office and meeting space), Sterling (Umpqua) Savings Bank... are you missing from this list? Please let Carol know! ie who did the sheetrock in the new kid's room? who did electrical?