Sawyer's News is the latest of the iconic, mostly family-owned businesses to disappear from a once flourishing downtown landscape.
"To many people Sawyer's News is a landmark of what the downtown used to be," said co-owner John Sawyer.
It was once dominated by such stalwarts as Hardisty's Homewares, Mailer-Frey Hardware, Rosenberg's Department Store and Traverso's Market that have either gone out of business or moved to shopping areas with more parking and easier access.
Sawyer's News "was here when people were doing their Fourth Street cruising," Sawyer recalled, noting the time decades ago when the Santa Rosa's version of Main Street was the Friday and Saturday night gathering spot for local high school students.
A few other long-time downtown stalwarts of Santa Rosa's distant past still remain - Corrick's, ER Sawyer Jewelers, Arrigoni's Market and the grand-daddy of them all at 117 years, Pedersen's Furniture.
Local attorney Kevin Konicek, now 54 and a regular customer of Sawyer's News since his parents introduced him to the store as a young child, called the impending closure "a really sad day."
"I hate to see that part of our history and our soul disappear from the downtown," he said.
Konicek said Sawyer's News was not only a great place to learn about the world but also to see people he knew.
"I think about this place with all this wide range of amazing stuff, magazines on international affairs, doll collecting, interior design, screen writing," Konicek said. "Santa Rosa wasn't this big metropolitan place but Sawyer's provided this great window in the world."
Konicek said Sawyer's provided him with surprising windows into people he thought he knew as well. Seeing what they read "tells you something about them," he said.
"For instance when I was a kid I saw a city councilman browsing through the adult section. And this dumb jock I use to run track against was in there one day picking up a copy of the New York Times," Konicek said.
Another note of regret came from Keven
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Brown, who is principal owner of Corrick's along with his wife, Jeri, and his father Corrick Brown, who is part owner. The stationery store has been a family-run, downtown institution since 1915.
He said it will not only be the downtown's loss of history but the community's loss the day Sawyer's closes.
"There is no one that has the depth of publications they have," he said. "When I am investigating something - gardening, remodeling or something else - they always have multiple publications that deal with it."
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