The first Woolworth Building

a six story masterpiece in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA

By 1900 the Five and Ten Cent Storea had become a great success. Frank Woolworth had established a syndicate of friendly rivals who all stocked his merchandise. Each dimestore chain used their own scouts to identify locations for further openings.

Woolworth dedicated most of his time to buying, travelling to Europe regularly in search of novelties and luxuries for his range. The visits afforded the opportunity to enjoy the local culture, taking in museums, art galleries and landmarks as well as the main shopping streets.

As he became more successful the magnate craved acceptance into high society and started to think about what he would leave to posterity. He decided that the best way to make a mark would be to get into property. This had the added bonus that it could generate a good return on his investment.

He chose his favourite location of Lancaster, Pennsylvania for his first development scheme. For some time he had mused about enlarging his first successful store in North Queen Street. Rather than expanding into adjacent premises, he systematically bought up property along the road in a run-down spot which local people considered to be the wrong side of the street. He kept his plans a secret to keep the prices low. When he had acquired the whole block, he revealed spectacular plans for a 'skyscraper', proposing a large shop with five floors of offices above, capped by a roof garden and an open air theatre with panoramic views across the rooftops.

Some days the theatre was used for Company purposes, like Store Managers' Meetings (see below), but at least two or three days per week Frank and his Building Manager Jno. B. Peoples (District Manager for the North Western Mutual Life Insurance Company, one of his tenants) would lay on spectacular entertainment with refreshments. Many shows were a sell out.

The clever design of the building made it a suntrap on bright summer evenings, that could be enclosed and heated as the nights drew in.

Among the coming attractions noted in our programme were:

■ Charley Grapewin & Co. "Above the Limit"
■ Dick and Alice McAvoy
■ Mansfield and Wilbur
■ Johnson and Wells
■ George C. Davis
■ Hugh Stanton and Florence Modena
■ Lizzie Evans and Harry Mills
■ Edmund Hayes and Co.
■ Hill and Whittaker
■ The Demuths
■ The Five Nosses

The roof top theatre was a big hit with the people of Lancaster, and quickly established itself as a centre of the social scene. It was famous for its spectacular sets, visible in the picture below as the backdrop for a team photo of the Five-and-Ten's Store and Office Management, which was taken in 1901. American associates were impressed by the theatre. Some noted that it was one of only a few places where their Frank Woolworth really let his hair down.

In many ways the Lancaster Skyscraper was a dress rehearsal for the Woolworth Building, commissioned just a decade later. It paid its way, thanks to a marketing campaign that was initiated before the first brick was laid. It was opulent, with gargoyles and turrets on the outside and the finest interior fittings throughout.

But unlike the Broadway Place building in New York, the Lancaster edifice has not been preserved. Shortly after World War II the F. W. Woolworth Co. applied for permission to pull it down and replace it with a bulk-standard concrete and glass superstore. This stood on the site until the late 1990s. Today even that building is gone, replaced by an extension to a neighbouring bank.

The photograph on the left above shows the salesfloor in the Lancaster skyscraper shortly before the First World War. The layout includes many of the features first pioneered by Charles Sumner Woolworth in his flagship store in Scranton, including well-appointed mahogany counters, wide gangways and bright electric lighting.