Kalama sits along the Columbia River in Cowlitz County, a small Washington town best known to travelers as a stop just off Interstate 5 between Portland and Longview, and tucked into its historic downtown at 297 North 1st Street is 1st Street Antiques, a multi-dealer antique mall that bills itself as the largest of its kind in town. Rather than a single curated shop, the space functions as a cooperative marketplace where more than seventeen independent vendors each maintain their own booth, so the mix of merchandise shifts constantly as sellers restock. On any given visit a shopper might pass furniture refinished from mid-century pieces, glassware and ceramics, vintage toys, tools, jewelry, textiles, and the kind of small collectibles that reward patient browsing more than a quick scan. The shop describes its own inventory simply as everything you can imagine plus more, an admission that the appeal here is breadth rather than a narrow specialty.
New inventory arrives daily, which is a meaningful detail for regular customers of multi-vendor antique malls: because no single owner controls the entire floor, the turnover is faster and less predictable than at a boutique with one buyer making purchasing decisions. That daily restocking is also why the shop encourages repeat visits rather than a single one-and-done trip, since the booth that had nothing of interest last month might hold exactly the right find this week. Alongside retail sales, 1st Street Antiques also purchases antiques directly from the public, giving Kalama-area households a local outlet for downsizing, estate cleanouts, or simply parting with pieces that no longer fit their homes, rather than driving to Portland or Seattle to find a buyer.
The shop is open seven days a week, making it an easy stop for both dedicated pickers working a regional antiquing route and casual visitors passing through on the way to or from the coast or the Columbia River Gorge. Kalama’s compact historic district, with its riverside park and small-town Main Street feel, gives the shop a low-key, unhurried browsing atmosphere that differs from the more curated, higher-turnover vintage boutiques found in bigger cities like Portland or Seattle. That cooperative, many-vendors-under-one-roof format is itself the shop’s clearest differentiator in a region with plenty of single-owner antique stores: shoppers are really browsing seventeen-plus micro-shops in one building, each with its own pricing philosophy and specialty, which multiplies the odds of stumbling onto something unexpected compared to a single-dealer store.
For collectors of Pacific Northwest antiques, dealers looking to consign, or anyone furnishing a home with pieces that have some history behind them, 1st Street Antiques offers a straightforward proposition: a large, frequently refreshed, multi-vendor inventory in a walkable small-town setting, open daily, with a standing offer to buy as well as sell. Those looking for contact details or directions can reach the shop by phone at 360-673-0057. In short, 1st Street Antiques is Kalama, Washington’s largest multi-vendor antique mall, a daily-changing collection of more than seventeen dealers’ booths at 297 North 1st Street that buys as well as sells, open every day of the week for browsers and collectors alike.
