Former Five and Dime Store in Kansas City MO

F.W. Woolworth Building, Kansas City Missouri

Date added: May 04, 2024 Categories:

Erected in 1927-1928, the F. W. Woolworth Building at 3120-3122 Troost Avenue was one of three secondary suburban Woolworth stores established in Kansas City, Missouri in the 1920s, a period when no other dime store chain had more than one store in Kansas City. The main and largest store, purchased in an acquisition of the S. H. Knox and Company "five-and-ten-cent store" in 1911, was at 1105-1111 Main Street in Kansas City's downtown central business district.

On May 4^th, 1926, The Kansas City Post reported the construction of the first suburban building for the Woolworth chain store company at 3923 Main Street. Erected after an analysis of pedestrian traffic, this outlet faced the city's main commercial corridor in its fastest-growing ward. During the 1920s, the population of the ward, with its southernmost boundary at 39^th Street, grew by more than 32,495 residents, a 127.5 percent increase over the previous decade. At this time, the F. W. Woolworth Company operated more than seven hundred stores in the United States. The Kansas City Post article reported, "The new Kansas City store remains the only one seriously considered by Woolworth officials as a second store in any city except those having double the population of Kansas City's entire metropolitan area." Two years later, in 1928, Woolworth opened the store at 3120-3122 Troost Avenue in the same ward, underscoring the growth in the ward and the policy of the Woolworth Company to establish suburban stores in high pedestrian traffic areas. By 1930, the Woolworth chain in Kansas City also included a store at 4626 Troost Avenue, near the then southernmost boundary of the city's suburban development, and a second downtown store at 556 Walnut Street.

W. H. Goodwin erected the first commercial building to occupy the lots at 3120-3122 Troost Avenue. The architect, T. G. Wilson, designed a one-story brick building to house a "cleaning business." According to city directories, the Monkey Steam had numerous outlets throughout the city, established a new main office and plant at 3122 Troost Avenue in 1915. Prior to the construction of the brick commercial building, a two-story frame house occupied the lot.

At this time, the construction of commercial buildings on Troost Avenue in the vicinity of 31^st Street and Linwood Boulevard created the first retail shopping district away from the downtown Kansas City business area. An early 1920s postcard shows the development of the commercial district. On the east side of Troost Avenue are the six-story Westover office building, the Strauss Peyton photography studio, a millinery shop, a corset shop, the Prudential Insurance Company, and the Swyden Rug and Drapery Company. The colonnaded Rossington apartments are further back on the east side of Troost Avenue. On the west side of the street in the background is the 1918 multi-story Joseph C. Wirthman Building, which housed a corner drugstore; the Isis Theater and cafeteria; and offices for physicians and dentists. Smaller buildings on the west side of the street included a millinery shop, small dry goods store, a florist, a restaurant, and a piano store. Also on the west side of the street was the building at 3120-3122 Troost Avenue. In 1920, the city directory lists the Monkey Steam Dye Works Company at this space. Subsequent city directories list Monkey Steam Dye Works at 3122 Troost Avenue; and a number of businesses, including the Empress Boot Shop and a beauty parlor, at the space at 3120 Troost Avenue, indicating that the tenant either sublet or the owner rented one side of the storefront space.

In 1927, Frank Swyden's rug cleaning business occupied the space at 3122 Troost Avenue and a beauty parlor occupied the space next door at 3120 Troost Avenue. A September 27^th, 1927 building permit indicates that the owner of the property, W. W. Godwin, applied for a permit to undertake a substantial renovation and expansion of the building, including the addition of a basement, stone foundation, brick addition, and composition roof. The renovation doubled the size of the building. An examination of the building and historic photographs indicates that the renovation retained portions of the existing structure, including the side walls. These sources indicate that the primary facade, with its balustrade parapet and Moderne storefront, dates to the 1927 renovation. Beginning in 1928 and continuing into the 1950s, the city directories identify the space as the F.W. Woolworth Company "Five and Ten Cent Store." The 1939 county assessor's photographs on file at the City of Kansas City, Missouri Landmarks Commission documents the building's retention of its historic appearance.

Woolworth Five-And-Ten-Cent Stores

Five-and-dime stores played a central role in the social customs and economy of America in the first half of the twentieth century. From before 1900 until after World War II, the F. W. Woolworth five-and-ten-cent store was the oldest and dominant dime store chain in the country. The chain began in 1879 when Frank Winfield Woolworth opened a notions store and pioneered retail precedents that continue today; the practice of buying merchandise direct from manufacturers in large volumes, establishing fixed prices on all items (five or ten cents), and placing merchandise out on display for the public to view, select, and purchase. Prior to the advent of Woolworth's marketing innovations, customers asked a clerk to select items from behind the counter and to quote a price that often became the subject of bargaining. Woolworth was also the first general merchandise retailer to establish the lunch counter as an integral component in the dime store. Thus, in addition to conveniently accessible discounted merchandise attracting shoppers, the store became a gathering place for social and business encounters.

After initial success of his store in Pennsylvania, Woolworth and his brother, Charles S. Woolworth, opened a large number of five-and-ten-cent stores. Other businesses and chains copied the Woolworth format and during the first half of the twentieth century, the five-and-dime specialty store became a fixture in America's commercial corridors.

In 1911, the F. W. Woolworth Company incorporated, merging six chains of five-and-ten-cent stores (586 stores) founded by the Woolworth brothers and others. One of these businesses was that of the S. H. Knox and Company five-and-ten-cent store in downtown Kansas City, Missouri. In 1919, when F. W. Woolworth died, his chain consisted of 1,081 stores in the United States and Canada. At a time when department store chains were regional, Woolworth's was one of a very few national operations.

The next decade was a boom period for expanding chain stores. The Woolworth Company began to establish multiple stores in selected large cities, primarily in their central business districts and in "suburban" middle-class commercial districts at locations with high pedestrian traffic near major streetcar lines, such as the store at 3120-3122 Troost Avenue. Although there were a number of stores to be found in working-class neighborhoods, the per capita distribution of stores reflected a decided corporate preference for doing business in middle-class neighborhoods.

Like other American five-and-dime stores, Woolworth's marketed both brand name and general merchandise at low prices and featured something for everyone; kitchen wares, toys, sewing materials, hardware, clothing, costume jewelry, cosmetics, and candy; at prices affordable to the working and middle classes. The dime store's lunch counter became a common meeting place for businessmen and shoppers. The presence of suburban stores in major cities meant that a Woolworth store often functioned as a neighborhood store for many of its customers.

The Woolworth Company introduced innovations that were exclusive to the company. Although the Woolworth chain created a prototype discount retail outlet, the company encouraged managers to make their stores local institutions. As a result, from the lunch counter menu to specialized merchandise, Woolworth stores developed their own local character and varied widely from region to region and from city to town. Woolworth's also paid better wages than most of its competitors and was a major employer of women. F. W. Woolworth himself introduced minimum wages for all positions, paid vacations, and Christmas bonuses, all of which were unusual practices in the early twentieth century.

Woolworth's literally remained a dime store until 1932 when the company raised its top price to 20 cents. The limited price practice ended, however, when the company expanded its offerings to include higher-priced merchandise such as furniture and appliances in 1935. By the 1940s, Woolworth's was the nation's largest food-service retailer, maintaining nearly a thousand lunch counters across the United States.

The location of Woolworth's third store in Kansas City at 3120-3122 Troost Avenue in 1928 reflected the corporate marketing strategies of the Woolworth Company at that time. In the 1920s, streetcar lines ran along 31 Street, Troost Avenue, and Linwood Boulevard. The block between 31^st Street and Linwood Boulevard was a busy transfer location with a high level of pedestrian traffic. Moreover, beginning in the early 1920s, Kansas City embarked on a massive infrastructure project, widening and paving Troost Avenue, the longest street in the city south from 27^th to 75^th streets. Building and business development ensued.

This commercial corridor reflected the middle-class venue required by the Woolworth Company. Among the new buildings erected in the 1920s on the block of Troost Avenue between 31^st Street and Linwood Boulevard were the Westover Office Building, which housed the Linwood State Bank and offices for many of Kansas City's leading doctors and dentists (including one of the City's first orthodontists); the Community State Bank; the Shankman Building, which housed a branch post office and numerous shops and offices; and the Pioneer Automobile Service Company.

Woolworth's marketing innovations and narrow urban lots dictated the spatial arrangement of Woolworth buildings. A plan that allowed customers to go from area to volume of open space, divided only by the structural columns. This space accommodated wide counters arranged in a rectangular pattern with space for clerks in an enclosed central aisle. These rectangular counter units formed a grid, creating aisles for the public that allowed convenient access throughout the display floor. Because of the depth of the stores, the length of the display counter units ran from front to rear, mimicking the building's proportions. The depth of the store also required electrical lighting fixtures arranged in rows over the counters and light-colored ceilings and walls to reflect the light. The soda fountain and grill was usually at the rear or along one side of the floor near a door that accessed the basement or a supply room.

The interior configuration continued into the 1950s. In the post-World War II period, the open counter display areas remained, but acoustical tile replaced tin ceilings and fluorescent light fixtures took the place of pendant incandescent lights. Air conditioning precluded the use of ceiling fans and asbestos tile covered worn wooden floors.

The store design utilized by the Woolworth Company in the early twentieth century were one-part or two-part commercial block designs with expansive display windows punctuated by multiple recessed double-leaf entrances.

Unlike their main competitor, the S.S. Kresge Company, which had its own architectural division, the Woolworth Company both leased and erected stores designed by local architects. This was due, in part, to the fact that the Woolworth Company was a consolidation of a number of different store chains and engaged in speculative secondary locations in large cities to undercut existing businesses. Instead of having a standard building design, the Woolworth Company utilized its corporate logo as a narrow red sign with gold lettering that spanned the facade of the stores. The Woolworth Company continued this design practice throughout the first half of the twentieth century.

The simple design treatment of the one-part commercial block building at 3120-3122 Troost Avenue reflects stylistic trends and the evolution of commercial design in the early twentieth century as well as the preferences of the Woolworth Company. Like most commercial buildings erected after World War I and throughout the 1920s, the building's simple utilitarian design is carefully and conservatively detailed with minimal architectural ornament. Compared to earlier, more ornate commercial storefronts that incorporated columns, pilasters, belt courses, and ornate grand entrances, the facade of the building at 3120-3122 Troost Avenue has a "flattened" appearance that features brickwork and sparse terra-cotta ornamentation. This scaled-down approach to design has only one vague historical reference, which is in the balustrade design of the parapet's end bays. The remainder of the building reflects the advent of streamlined modern commercial design, especially the use of the curved glazing on the corners of the recessed entrances of the dominant storefront.

Troost Avenue remained an important commercial corridor throughout the 1950s, providing goods and services to the surrounding middle-class neighborhoods. Buses supplanted the electric streetcar and the area continued to be a busy and important transfer point in Kansas City's public transportation system. The Woolworth store at 3120-3122 Troost Avenue continued to operate throughout this decade.

In the 1960s, the five-and-dime model evolved into the larger discount store located near expanding suburbs. In 1962, the F. W. Woolworth Company founded the Woolco chain to compete with the Kresge Company's Kmart stores. At the same time, the Woolworth Company closed many of its large downtown stores. The Kansas City store between 11^th and 12^th Streets on Main Street closed in 1964.

The Woolco chain closed in the United States in 1982, but it was not until 1997 that the Woolworth Company closed its four hundred remaining five-and-ten-cent stores. Ironically, where once the speculative neighborhood Woolworth chain store undercut the local "mom-and-pop" notions store, the lower prices offered by the large discount chain stores contributed to the demise of the Main Street Woolworth store. The same year that the last Woolworth five-and-dime store closed, Wal-Mart replaced Woolworth on the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Building Description

The F. W. Woolworth Building located at 3120-3122 Troost Avenue is a one-story, one-part commercial block building. It is part of a streetscape of other one-part and two-part commercial block buildings dating from the first half of the twentieth century, the majority of which date from the 1920s. The rectangular plan measures approximately 45 feet by 130 feet. The flat roof slopes slightly to the rear elevation. A limestone foundation supports the solid brick walls that have orange tapestry brick facing on the primary facade. The storefront facade faces east onto Troost Avenue. The north elevation abuts the adjacent building. An open passageway, which is approximately six feet wide, separates the south elevation from the adjacent building. The west (rear) elevation faces onto a surface parking lot and alley. The lot slopes down to the west, resulting in an at-grade foundation line at the east end and an exposed foundation rising to approximately six feet above grade at the west elevation.

The symmetrical storefront spans nearly the width of the building and half the height of the facade and features two recessed entries on the east (primary) facade. This elevation features restrained ornamentation that incorporates neoclassical elements in the parapet and streamlined early twentieth-century storefront design, both of which were common 1920s commercial design treatments. A band of cast stone ornament with square-cut stone pieces that project downward from the band interrupts the tapestry brick piers on the north and south ends at the top of the storefront. A stone string course spans the facade at the roofline, above which is a broad crenellated parapet. The parapet features recessed engaged stone balustrades in the north and south bays, and a narrow rectangular cast stone panel set flush with the building's address ("3120-3122"). Cast stone coping caps the parapet.

The storefront retains its original configuration and most of its materials. The large single-glazed plate glass windows are set in the original bronze frames supported by bulkheads with terrazzo cladding. The glazing in the southernmost window of the south storefront bay is in a divided aluminum frame installed within the original bronze frame that once held a single pane. This same alteration occurs in the panel adjacent to the door at the north entrance on the south side. Aluminum-framed double-leaf doors, which date to the 1960s, fill the original opening below the fixed transoms in the recessed storefront entrances at the north and south ends of the storefront. The recessed entrances feature unique curved sections at the "corners" of the display windows. These curved "corners" consist of ten individual, narrow, vertical pieces of frameless cut glass installed to create a prism-like appearance.

The north elevation directly abuts the adjacent building. An examination of the interior wall reveals the presence of the original window openings that now contain brick infill. Originally, the south elevation also contained numerous window openings with segmental brick arches and limestone sills. The lower openings toward the east end of the south elevation now have brick infill. Openings that remain include three openings on the west end that are situated higher on the wall and two openings in the stone foundation. The west (rear) elevation featured window and door openings at the basement and first-story levels. Openings that remain include two window openings and a door opening on the first story and one door opening at the basement level; other openings now contain brick infill or are covered with wood.

The original interior open space is undivided; interrupted only by wood columns positioned along the center of the building. Other than portions of a raised bookkeeping/cashier booth at the rear wall, no store fixtures remain. The columns retain their wood wainscoting, while the upper column enclosures/finish treatment is missing. The original plaster applied over the brick perimeter walls has also been removed, leaving the brick exposed. The original tin ceiling is in place and in good condition; however, there are a few missing panels. The original hardwood floors are covered with mastic that once secured non-original floor tiles. At the front of the building where there is no basement, the wood floors are damaged beyond repair and have been partially removed to enable investigation of the sub-structure prior to the development of a treatment and rehabilitation plan. Fluorescent tube light fixtures illuminate the first floor.

The basement contains a large open space and several small storage rooms and employee restrooms. Some partitions have beadboard wall covering, while others have a plaster finish. The stone foundation walls are exposed. A wood open joist floor system supports the first floor rests on brick piers. Basement floors are of concrete. Incandescent lighting illuminates the basement.