Powell's Books
Powell's Books is a chain of bookstores in Portland, Oregon, and its surrounding metropolitan area. Powell's headquarters, dubbed Powell's City of Books, claims to be the largest independent new and used bookstore in the world. Powell's City of Books is located in the Pearl District on the edge of downtown and occupies a full city block between NW 10th and 11th Avenues and between W. Burnside and NW Couch Streets. It contains over 68,000 square feet (6,300 m2), about 1.6 acres of retail floor space. CNN rates it one of the ten "coolest" bookstores in the world.
The inventory for its retail and online sales is over four million new, used, rare, and out-of-print books. Powell's buys around 3,000 used books a day.
History
20th century
Powell's was founded by Walter Powell in 1971. His son, Michael Powell, had started a bookstore in Chicago, Illinois, in 1970 which specialized in used, rare, and discounted books, primarily of an academic and scholarly nature. In 1979, Michael Powell joined his father in Portland, right after his father's store had lost its lease; within a year, they found the location that became its current headquarters. Michael bought the bookstore from his father in 1982.