F. W. Woolworth Co.
The five-and-dime chain closed in 1997; the surviving company renamed itself after its Foot Locker subsidiary.
Frank Winfield Woolworth opened his first successful 'Great Five Cent Store' in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1879, pioneering the fixed-price, open-shelf 'five-and-dime' format that let shoppers handle merchandise themselves. Woolworth's spread across America and abroad and built the Woolworth Building in 1913 — briefly the tallest in the world, paid for in cash. Its lunch counters became a fixture of downtown life and, in Greensboro in 1960, a flashpoint of the civil-rights sit-in movement. Squeezed by discount and mall retailers, the variety chain closed its U.S. stores in 1997.
Known For
- Fixed-price five-and-dime format
- Downtown lunch counters
- The Woolworth Building
- Spun off Foot Locker