File:MB Augustine, grocer, ca 1888 (MOHAI 271).jpg

M.B. (Manuel Brock) Augustine (1844-1922) began working in the grocery business in Seattle in the early 1890s. Prior to this, he ran a general merchandise and mining supply store in Nevada in the 1870s, then worked as a traveling salesman out of California in the 1880s. Augustine first appears in Seattle city directories in 1892, in business with grocer Charles Louch, as Louch, Augustine & Co. at 815 Front Street (later First Avenue). The company prospered during the Gold Rush, when prospectors leaving Seattle for Alaska needed to stock up on supplies. Louch left the business in around 1904, after which Augustine's son-in-law at the time, H.A. Kyer, joined the company. The new partnership of Augustine & Kyer is listed for the first time in the 1907 city directory , with M.B. Augustine as President, and H.A. Kyer as Vice-President and Treasurer. Augustine's son Julius had also been working in the business since around 1902, first as a clerk and later as a manager. By 1909, M.B. Augustine sold his share in the business to his son and Kyer. Kyer and the younger Augustine expanded the business to include several neighborhood branch stores. In the aftermath of the Great Depression, the Augustine & Kyer stores were sold by their parent company as part of an effort to clear itself of debt.

Caption information source: Augustine & Kyer – A Tradewell Grocery Story, by Rob Ketcherside, http://ba-kground.com/augustine-kyer-tradewell-grocery-part-1/

• Subjects (LCTGM): Grocers--Washington (State)--Seattle; Portraits
• People: Augustine, M.B.