In 1962, three discount chains opened their first stores in the United States within a few months of each other. Kmart came first, in March. Walmart opened in Arkansas that July. In between, in June, the F.W. Woolworth Company opened the first Woolco in Columbus, Ohio, a store of more than 100,000 square feet.
In the U.S., Woolco didn't last. In Canada it did, long enough to become part of the furniture of Ontario shopping, and in the end it became something nobody would have predicted in 1962: the doorway Walmart used to walk into Canada.
The story
Woolco crossed the border quickly. A history of the Toronto store published by the Emery Village Voice notes that by 1966 there were nine Woolcos in Canada. The chain operated as a division of Woolworth Canada.
These were big stores for the time. The Sault Ste. Marie Woolco opened on Queen Street East in the summer of 1965, and SooToday's look back lists departments for food, clothing, furniture, jewellery, sporting goods, hardware, audio, photography, stationery, gifts and pets. It had an underground parking lot, and a restaurant. In Toronto, the Woolco near Weston Road and Sheppard Avenue opened in 1970 with more than 100,000 square feet of floor space and a cafeteria called the Red Grille.
While the American chain was shut down in the early 1980s, with all 336 U.S. stores closed, Woolworth kept Woolco going in Canada for more than a decade longer.
Why people remember it
Then there was $1.44 Day. In the Sault, the store's former manager Isabel Monaco told SooToday that shoppers lined up for nylons that normally cost $1.99 and went for $1.44 on the day, and walked out with armloads of paper towels, soap and detergent.
Monaco is part of the story too. She took over the Sault store in 1981 and was, according to SooToday, the first woman to manage a Woolco store in Canada.
Then there's the food. The Toronto store's cafeteria was called the Red Grille, and the Sault store had a restaurant of its own.
Not every Woolco made it to the end. The Sault store closed on December 31, 1991, after 26 years. SooToday's account lists several reasons: shoppers moving from downtown Queen Street to the malls, cross-border shopping and the GST.
What happened?
In January 1994, Walmart announced it would buy most of Woolco's Canadian stores from Woolworth Canada. The Christian Science Monitor reported the deal at about 120 stores and roughly US$300 million, though the price wasn't officially announced. The Monitor described Canadian retailers bracing for a much bigger competitor.
Walmart Canada was officially founded on March 17, 1994, with 122 former Woolco stores. According to Retail Insider, Walmart passed on 22 Woolcos that were unionized or in downtown locations, and many of those later became Zellers. It kept about 16,000 Woolco employees, retrained them and gave them a raise. A Woolco senior vice-president, Mario Pilozzi, became Walmart Canada's first CEO.
CBC's Don Pittis later contrasted Walmart's approach with Target's failed entry two decades later: Walmart kept the Woolco stores open while it converted them and kept the people who already knew the Canadian market. Over the course of 1994, the Woolco signs came down and Walmart's went up.
So if your local Walmart has been there since the mid-1990s, it may well have started life as a Woolco.
Quick facts
- Parent company: F.W. Woolworth (in Canada, Woolworth Canada)
- First Woolco anywhere: Columbus, Ohio, June 1962
- Canadian stores by 1966: Nine
- Famous for: $1.44 Days and, at least in Toronto, the Red Grille cafeteria
- The end: 122 stores became the first Walmart Canada stores in 1994
