Hidden treasure

HARTLINE — Just off Highway 2 about 13 miles northeast of Coulee City is the biggest little shop you may never have heard of. 

“I started out with (one) room, and somehow, someway, this thing just morphed into this,” said Cindy Cauble. “The whole entire school is a second hand (store).” 

That school is the Hartline School, which was built in 1920 and first served the Hartline School District as a K-12 school and later, after consolidation, became part of the Coulee-Hartline School District. The 29,000-square-foot building has two stories, plus a gym in the basement, 12 classrooms and a 300-seat auditorium, according to the Hartline School Preservation Association, which now owns the building. In 2008, the Coulee-Hartline School District decided to vacate the building and bus Hartline’s students to Coulee City. 

“The school district thought they were just going to dig a hole and kick it in, and then found out they couldn’t do that,” said Cauble, who runs the Hartline School Second Hand Mall. “This is a pretty big building. You can’t just go kick it in a hole.” 

The Port of Hartline, which owned the building next door, bought the building in 2010. The port found it didn’t have any particular use for either, Cauble said, so some Hartline residents formed a 501(c)(3) nonprofit called the Hartline Betterment Organization, which bought the building in 2016, according to the organization’s website. The second-hand mall sort of grew out of the need to do something with the building, Cauble said. 

Every penny the store brings in goes back into the building for maintenance and improvement, Cauble said.  

“One hundred percent,” she said. “You know, in the winter we could have a $3,000 PUD bill.” 

The “mall” encompasses all the classrooms on the upper floor and about half of the lower. Each classroom houses a different collection of merchandise: one has glassware, another art, a third vintage and collectible toys, a fourth games and stuffed animals. Tables of records and CDs are set up in the hallway and the “Man Cave” downstairs is filled with tools and shop equipment.  

The décor in the hall harks back to the school’s heyday, with pennants and photos of former classes and administrators. The auditorium has seating for about 300 and boasts a piano and an old-fashioned pump organ, but it’s only been used a few times since the shop has been there, said volunteer Mitch Bowers. The gym was flooded by vandals years ago and won’t be fit to use anytime in the foreseeable future, he said. 

Everything in the store is donated, Cauble said. Most of the donations come from out of town, she added. 

“I had (two teachers) come in here about a year and a half ago from Yakima,” she said. “They just went crazy in here, and they go, ‘We're going to bring you some donations.’ I thought ‘Yeah, yeah, right. See you guys later.’ Well, they just made probably their fourth trip here. They fill a truck with some nice stuff, they come all the way from Yakima and drop their stuff off. I have people from George, Moses Lake, Grand Coulee, Electric City. We’re a pretty big circle.” 

“There is some weird stuff that comes in that (Cauble) and I look and we have no idea what it is,” Bowers said. “There are some kitchen things that come in here; I mean, I think they’re kitchen stuff. And we just have no idea.” 

The largest room upstairs is reserved for books, and there are chairs and tables for patrons to sit and get eye tracks all over the merchandise. It doubles as an informal library, Bowers said. 

“Some people come in and (Cauble) will let them have some books,” he said. “They’ll read them, bring them back and they’ll bring some more out.” 

“We come here all the time,” said Cindy Sherwood, of Wilson Creek, who was relaxing in the library with Virginia Tipple, also of Wilson Creek. “It’s a second home.” 

The store does almost no advertising, Cauble said. It has a Facebook page and a sign a couple of blocks away on Highway 2. Nonetheless, it has no difficulty attracting business, especially during the holiday season. 

“We have a Christmas extravaganza, don’t we?” Cauble called over to Sherwood and Tipple. 

“Absolutely,” Sherwood said. “It’s the best time to come.” 

“We fill these hallways at Thanksgiving weekend,” Cauble said. “I'm telling you; it is something. We move everything out of these hallways and set up tables, and I've got a whole room full of Christmas stuff that people have donated. It's a big deal.” 

    Four-year-old Lisette Heidenthal of Wilbur tries on a necklace she’s found at the Hartline Second Hand Mall, with a little help from her mom Kristen Heidenthal. Kristen has a background in museums and historic preservation, she said, so she’s always wanted to visit the Hartline school, and hearing of a chess set for sale there gave her the opportunity.
  

    Each classroom in the Hartline Second Hand Mall is devoted to a different category of treasures, like this one filled with games, toys, puzzles and stuffed animals for children.
  

    The main hallway of the former Hartline School reflects its past glory with pennants commemorating the school’s victories over the years.