F. W. Woolworth Company

Ghost Corp Apparel — resurrecting iconic corporate ghosts.

Frank W. Woolworth opened a five-cent store in Utica, New York, in 1879; it failed quickly. His next shop, opened that June in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, caught fire instead. The bargain bazaar grew from price-tag novelty into a national five-and-dime institution: small treasures, practical necessities, candy counters, and the occasional thing nobody needed but everybody somehow brought home.

F. W. Woolworth & Company formally incorporated in 1905. In 1912, Woolworth combined his operation with five other five-and-ten-cent chains, creating a 596-store enterprise. Its New York City corporate home became the Woolworth Building at 233 Broadway, completed in 1913—a cash-paid Gothic skyscraper with decidedly un-five-and-dime ambition.

The company evolved well beyond its variety-store roots. It acquired Kinney Shoe Corporation in 1963, and Kinney launched the first Foot Locker stores in 1974. But discount competitors and changing shopping habits squeezed the classic U.S. Woolworth business. On July 17, 1997, the company announced the closure of its remaining 400 domestic variety stores—an unceremonious final markdown on a very long retail era.

Our F. W. Woolworth Company collection celebrates the red-signage memories, lunch-counter lore, nickel-and-dime optimism, and skyscraper-sized confidence of an American retail original. The parent company took the name Venator Group in June 1998, later becoming Foot Locker, but Woolworth remains the ghost with the best bargain bin.