Ken's Camera closes after decades caught on film
VERETT — Ken Minnig was always a little ahead of his time. When he and his wife Anita moved to Western Washington from Nebraska in the late ’60s, he landed a job at a local camera shop. It probably wasn’t a dream job he’d been seeking, just something to pay the bills as their family grew.
By 1971, he’d opened his own shop, aptly named Ken’s Camera, in Lynnwood. By 1976, the flagship store moved to 8907 Evergreen Way in Everett. Two years later, Ken called up Eastman-Kodak, wanting to know how he could get his hands on one of these new mini-labs, the ones that could process your film in just an hour or so in the back of the shop. It would be a revolution — no more weeklong waits while your film shipped off to a specialty lab out of state and back again.
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As digital cameras and internet sales began to challenge film’s dominance, the other locations gradually shut their doors beginning in the ’90s. Reed and her brother Eric Minnig run one of the two remaining locations, the stalwart Evergreen Way shop. Their brother Bryan manages the Mount Vernon location.
At the end of 2022, the three siblings will retire, and the last two markers of an almost-bygone era will be gone in a flash.
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