Last weekend, after years of financial turmoil and weeks of Total Inventory Blowouts, the last locations of Seattle’s 135-year-old Bartell Drugs rang up their final sales.

Three stores — in Kirkland, Mill Creek and Gig Harbor, Washington — were all that remained after Rite Aid, which bought the 67-store chain in 2020, went bankrupt and liquidated the enterprise George H. Bartell founded in 1890.

“End of an era,” said Molly Lavinter, 48, as she stood Friday afternoon outside the Gig Harbor Bartell, its windows plastered with yellow banners. “I grew up with Bartell’s. … This is like watching my childhood go away.”

The end of the Bartell’s era came slowly at first, then all at once.

In July, just two months after Rite Aid filed its second bankruptcy, rival CVS said it would take over 20 o

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