George Bartell, a native of Kansas, came to Seattle and opened his first pharmacy in 1890. The company grew to 67 stores and became the oldest drugstore chain in the United States. This changed in 2020, when Bartell Drugs was acquired by Rite Aid.

But in 2020, Rite Aid, one of the three biggest pharmacy chains in the U.S., bought all 67 locations of Bartell Drugs. Rite Aid paid just $95 million, a figure that some analysts said was surprisingly low, given the real estate imprint of Bartell's in a pricey region.

Rite Aid bought Bartell Drugs, which was a 130-year-old Seattle chain, for $95 million in 2020. Rite Aid Corp. runs more than 2,100 stores in the United States, mostly on the East and West Coasts, and has posted annual losses for several years.