Silverwoods, originally promoted as F. B. Silverwood, after its founder, was a men's clothing store chain founded in Los Angeles in 1894 by Francis Bernard (F.B. "Daddy") Silverwood, a Canadian-American originally from near Lindsay, Ontario. He was a colorful character covered in the newspapers, a "songster" composer of popular songs, Shriner, and who famously married in 1920. [1]
The first F. B. Silverwood store opened on May 8, 1894 at 124 S. Spring St., carried only men's furnishings, had four employees and had sales of $38,000 (~$1.34 million in 2023) that year. Silverwood then moved to a larger location at 221 S. Spring St. The flagship store was established in 1904 at Sixth & Broadway. In 1920 the store removed to temporary quarters at 320 S. Broadway while the old store was demolished starting January 26, 1920. A new 115,420 sq ft (10,723 m2) six-floor store was built on the site of the old one at 6th and Broadway. The new store opened September 1, 1920. [2] It closed in 1974 shortly after Silverwoods opened a new downtown store in Broadway Plaza (now The Bloc Los Angeles) on Seventh Street. [3]
Upon opening in 1920 the flagship had the following departments: [4]
The company incorporated in November 1920. At that time there were four branches (Long Beach, Bakersfield, Maricopa and San Bernardino) [5] plus the flagship. F. B. Silverwood died in March 1924. In later decades the store was purchased by Hartmarx and focused on business suits until the end, later becoming out of sync with clothing preferences of Southern California men.
By 1992 when the chain closed, Silverwoods had grown to an eighteen store chain with branches across Greater Los Angeles. [6]
In 1973, Silverwoods branches were located at: [7]
W. & J. Sloane,, was a chain of furniture stores that originated from a luxury furniture and rug store in New York City that catered to the prominent, including the White House and the Breakers, and wealthy, including the Rockefeller, Whitney, and Vanderbilt families.
Gimbel Brothers was an American department store corporation that operated for over a century, from 1842 until 1987. Gimbel patriarch Adam Gimbel opened his first store in Vincennes, Indiana, in 1842. In 1887, the company moved its operations to the Gimbel Brothers Department Store in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It became a chain when it opened a second, larger store in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1894, moving its headquarters there. At the urging of future company president Bernard Gimbel, grandson of the founder, the company expanded to New York City in 1910.
Ohrbach's was a moderate-priced department store with a merchandising focus primarily on clothing and accessories. From its modest start in 1923 until the chain's demise in 1987, Ohrbach's expanded dramatically after World War II, and opened numerous branch locations in the New York and Los Angeles metropolitan areas. Its original flagship store was located on Union Square in New York City. It maintained administrative offices in Newark and in Los Angeles. The retailer closed the Newark offices in the 1970s. Paul László designed the Union Square store as well as many of their other stores.
Broadway, until 1890 Fort Street, is a thoroughfare in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The portion of Broadway from 3rd to 9th streets, in the Historic Core of Downtown Los Angeles, was the city's main commercial street from the 1910s until World War II, and is the location of the Broadway Theater and Commercial District, the first and largest historic theater district listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). With twelve movie palaces located along a six-block stretch of Broadway, it is the only large concentration of movie palaces left in the United States.
J. W. Robinson Co., Robinson's, was a chain of department stores operating in the Southern California and Arizona area, previously with headquarters in Los Angeles, California.
I. Magnin & Company was a San Francisco, California-based high fashion and specialty goods luxury department store. Over the course of its existence, it expanded across the West into Southern California and the adjoining states of Arizona, Oregon, and Washington. In the 1970s, under Federated Department Stores ownership, the chain entered the Chicago, and Washington, D.C., metropolitan areas. Mary Ann Magnin founded the company in 1876 and named the chain after her husband Isaac.
The Broadway was a mid-level department store chain headquartered in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1896 by English-born Arthur Letts Sr., and named after what was once the city's main shopping street, the Broadway became a dominant retailer in Southern California and the Southwest. Its fortunes eventually declined, and Federated Department Stores bought the chain in 1995. In 1996, Broadway stores were either closed or converted into Macy's and Bloomingdales, some of which were sold and converted to Sears, including the Stonewood Center and Whittwood Town Center locations.
Buffums, originally written as Buffums' with an apostrophe, was a chain of upscale department stores, headquartered in Long Beach, California. The Buffums chain began in 1904, when two brothers from Illinois, Charles and Edwin Buffum, together with other partners, bought the Schilling Bros., the largest dry goods store in Long Beach, and renamed it The Mercantile Co. The store grew to a large downtown department store, and starting in the 1950s, grew slowly over the years to be a small regional chain of 16 speciality department stores across Southern California at the time of its closure in 1990.
Bond Clothing Stores, Bond Clothes, Bond Clothiers, or Bond Stores, was a men's clothing manufacturing company and retailer. The company catered to the middle-class consumer.
Desmond's was a Los Angeles–based department store, during its existence second only to Harris & Frank as the oldest Los Angeles retail chain, founded in 1862 as a hat shop by Daniel Desmond near the Los Angeles Plaza. The chain as a whole went out of business in 1981 but Desmond's, Inc. continued as a company that went in to other chains to liquidate them. Desmond's stores in Northridge and West Covina were liquidated only in 1986 and survived in Palm Springs into the first years of the 21st century.
Haggarty's was a department store chain founded in Los Angeles in 1906, which closed in May 1970 due to not keeping up with fashion trends and a resulting $4.4 million in debts. It had more than a dozen branches at its peak.
Harris & Frank was a clothing retailer and major chain in the history of retail in Southern California, which at its peak had around 40 stores across Southern California and in neighboring states and regions. Its history dates back to a clothing store founded by Leopold Harris in Los Angeles in 1856 near the city's central plaza, only eight years after the city had passed from Mexican to American control. Herman W. Frank joined Harris in partnership 32 years later in 1888.
Coulter's was a department store that originated in Downtown Los Angeles and later moved to the Miracle Mile shopping district in that same city.
Mullen & Bluett was a Los Angeles-based department store specializing in men's clothing.
The Famous Department Store was a department store in Los Angeles, California.
7th Street is a street in Los Angeles, California running from S. Norton Ave in Mid-Wilshire through Downtown Los Angeles. It goes all the way to the eastern city limits at Indiana Ave., and the border between Boyle Heights, Los Angeles and East Los Angeles.
Panorama Mall is a mall in Panorama City, San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles, California. It is an enclosed mall anchored by two large discount stores, Walmart and Curacao, aimed primarily at a Hispanic customer base.
Parmelee-Dohrmann was a Los Angeles–based chain of stores that sold fine china, crystal, glassware, silver, and objects of art.
Retail in Southern California dates back to its first dry goods store that Jonathan Temple opened in 1827 on Calle Principal, when Los Angeles was still a Mexican village. After the American conquest, as the pueblo grew into a small town surpassing 4,000 population in 1860, dry goods stores continued to open, including the forerunners of what would be local chains. Larger retailers moved progressively further south to the 1880s-1890s Central Business District, which was later razed to become the Civic Center. Starting in the mid-1890s, major stores moved ever southward, first onto Broadway around 3rd, then starting in 1905 to Broadway between 4th and 9th, then starting in 1915 westward onto West Seventh Street up to Figueroa. For half a century Broadway and Seventh streets together formed one of America's largest and busiest downtown shopping districts.
Swelldom was a large women's clothing store variously described as a "cloak and suit house" and a "department store", operating from 1906 until the 1970s in California. It had locations on Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles' shopping district, later on Wilshire Blvd. at Camden in Beverly Hills, and near Union Square in San Francisco.