I was walking down Main Street in my town, and happened to look up at the top of a building…there, in weathered bronze letters was the name “S.S. Kresge”…they were one of the competitors of Woolworth’s…that great five and dime store. I know that Kresge morphed itself into “KMart”…but what about the others? In my youth, I remember seeing stores like W.T. Grant., Neisners’s, Woolworths, etc. They were all similar-they mostly soldinexpensive items like string, thread, envelopes, pencils, etc. And Woolworths had a pet dept. that sold parakeets and little silver-dollar-sized turtles, plus goldfish and hampsters. These stores seemed to be everywhere…why did they fold up?
Woolworth’s wasin business(I believe) over 100 years when they folded up! Perhapsit’s nostalgia, but I liked those old store chains!
My great uncle worked for the G.C. Murphy headquarters in McKeesport, PA for about fifty years. They ran a large chain of five-and-dimes and later expanded to department stores.
Sadly, they’re gone now. They sold out to McGrory’s, which folded as well.
In my home town the “5 and 10” store (it literally said that on the outside) was part of the chain Ben Franklin. My home town branch just closed. I know I’ve seen others, but not lately, so I don’t know if it’s still open.
We had an S.S. Kresge nearby, but they closed years ago. My understanding is that “Kresge” was the “K” of “K-Mart”. If so, they’re still around, and have just emerged from Chapter 11.
The W.T. Grant’s around my hometown closed years ago. Woolworth spawned Woolco. All the Woolworth and Woolco stores I know of closed down, some within the past ten years.
As I see it, the 5 & 10’s (btw, in addition to the other chains, anybody remember Ben Franklin stores?) were driven out of business from two directions: beaten on range of selection by discount superstores such as K-Mart and later Wal-Mart, and undercut on price by so-called dollar stores. Twenty years ago, my hometown in PA had a Woolworth’s, a Kresge, a G. C. Murphy and the aformentioned Ben Franklin; now its got a Wally World and a bunch of little shops with ‘Dollar’ in the name but representing at least four different small chains.
I’ve gotta admit, neither of these types of shop have that je ne said quoi of my hometown Woolworth’s.
Well, I guess CalMeacham remembers.
What’s with the (initial). (initial). (last name) format of the five and dime store names? We had an M. E. Moses five and dime near my church about fifteen years ago.
Kresge’s was in Ontario as well–I remember them from childhood before they changed to K-mart.
I understand that Kresge’s started just after the first world war, selling things for around 10c. If you take 70 or 80 years of inflation into account, the equivalent prices are around a dollar.
Dollar stores are common and thriving. So I maintain that the five-and-dime never died, just that the players are different.
Just thought I’d throw this in:
Nanci Griffith’s website is called 5 & Dime based on her song “Love at the Five and Dime”
Well Woolworths the name lives on (and it did come from the original). Woolworths is one of the biggest supermarket chains in New Zealand.
Department store wise they disapeared about 10 years ago though.
Two dollar shops are good though :).
And of course there’s the play and movie Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean.
I remember Ben Franklin as a five and dime. I don’t know about the tesr of the Ben Franklins, but some here on the west coast are now strictly craft stores.
We had a G.L. Perry. I remember it used to have an entire aisle full of bins of weird toys. Rubber spiders, yo-yos, superballs, plastic snakes, SuperElastic BubblePlastic, mini squirtguns, armymen, etc etc. Good stuff!
There was a Newberry’s in Hudson, NY when I was a little kid (say 10-15 years ago). I remember they had clothes on the ground floor, housewares on the second story, and toys, tools and sporting goods in the basement.
The National 5 & 10 on Main St. in Newark, DE is still around. I’m sure it owes it’s survival to the cheapness of University of Delaware students. I know I got my share of blue books and cheap Delaware t-shirts there.
G
I grew up about a mile/3 houses from Deering’s Dime and Dollar (late 70s, you had to factor in inflation :)) It was more of a General Store, though: now it is no longer, replaced by an exurban yuppie new age art dealer
However, in one tiny one-intersection town in Tennessee, just off the Appalachian Trail, there are not one but TWO general stores! Both of them had a convenience store, deli/restaurant, video store, and hardware selection, all in around the space of a dollar store or large convenience store. Probably the closest I’ve been to a Five and Dime in a decade.
(Almost exactly, too. The last time I remember eating in one was in 1990, at a Woolworth’s somewhere in the mid-atlantic seaboard.) I remember Five and Dimes having worse food than your average restaurant but much better food than your average non-fastfood-franchise discount department store.
The J.J. Newberry’s near my home closed about ten years ago. The one that had been in New Brunswick, NJ closed much earlier. But we never called Newberry’s a 5 & 10, like Ben Frankllin’s.
The largest Woolworth’s in the world was at Downtown Crossing in Boston. It closed up around ten years ago, too. The one in downtown Salt Lake closed before that. Woolworth’s was a 5 and 10 (“I can get you ten years in Levenworth or Eleven years in Twelveworth. Or Five and Ten at Woolworth” – Groucho Marx line.), even though it didn’t say so on the sign.
Now that takes me back. There are stores around that purport to sell a little of everything.
I regularly stop at a gas station in Keysers Ridge, Maryland. The attached store truly is a thing to behold. It really is a country store.
They sell fishing tackle, bait, camping supplies, ammo, firearms, liquor, beer, wine, snacks, groceries, coffee, sodas, milk, lottery tickets, cigarettes, newspapers, magazines, and pornography.
They usually have a gun raffle going, and I’ve already won an automatic .22 LR Remington from them.
They also always have the Keno game running for the state of Maryland, so if you want to waste some time there playing Keno, you can.
Fun place.
Wait a minute, that sounds familiar.
::checks mapquest::
I’ll be damned! I think that’s where we found the kitten!
You young whippersnappers probably never heard of the wildly popular song[about the lucky young man who found the girl of his dreams selling china in a five-and-dime] of the early 1930’s, entitled "I Found a Million Dollar Baby(at the Five and Ten Cent Store) Fanny Brice had a lot to do with the song gaining wide acceptance, and the lyrics were co-written by showman Billy Rose.
“It was a lucky April shower,
It was a most convenient door;
I found a Million Dollar Baby,
at the Five and Ten Cent store.”
This was the favorite song of an elderly couple, former neighbors of mine. He actually did find his future wife working at a Woolworth’s. Not selling china actually, but they couldn’t have everything.
Woolworths is still a familiar name on the high streets of the UK … still selling pretty much the five and dime stuff, plus CDs / DVDs / videos … and the ever-popular pick’n’mix.