F. W. Woolworth Store

Description of the Historic Place

The F.W. Woolworth store is a small two-storey brick building. Built in 1929, the building is located at 220 21st Street East in the Central Business District.  

Heritage Value

By 1929, Saskatoon was expanding in many ways and optimistic about its future. The year had seen $5.5 million worth of buildings erected, including City Park Collegiate, St. Joseph's Church and Rectory, the Capitol Theatre, Birks, and McGavins Bakery. Not since 1912 had the face of the city changed so much.

The F. W. Woolworth Store opened on 21st Street in 1929.  The company had been in business in Saskatoon since 1914 at 213 - 215 2nd Avenue South.  Company founder, Frank Winfield Woolworth, pioneered and consistently pursued the principles of low-priced volume selling and volume buying directly from the manufacturer for his business to succeed. The origins of the company go back to the Five Cent Store opened by Woolworth in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1879.  On its first day of business the store took in $127.65 and had sales of $6,750 in the first year.  From this modest beginning grew the F. W. Woolworth Company, one of the world's largest retail chains.

In addition to its association with the F.W. Woolworth Company, the F.W. Woolworth Store is valued for its architecture. The building features a red brick façade with Tyndall stone accents and a centered parapet of smooth Tyndall stone. The building has a flat parapet roofline with inset diamond-laid tiles and the building sign displays the ‘Woolworth Building’ name and construction date.

In 1974, green aluminum siding was added to the facade. The original façade was restored in 2008 and the building received an Honourable Mention in the Municipal Heritage Awards that same year for Restoration of the Exterior of a Public/Commercial Building.

Source: City of Saskatoon Built Heritage Database

Character Defining Elements

Key elements which contribute to the heritage value of this historic resource include:

• Its aesthetic appeal and architecture, including its red brick façade with Tyndall stone accents; its Tyndall stone parapet edged with rough-cut Tyndall stone surmounts; its flat parapet roofline composed of brick with inset diamond-laid tiles of polished Tyndall stone; its entablature of a corbelled cornice of Tyndall stone surmounting the four bays on the second floor, each with one window, and framed with self-pilasters of red brick and a belt-course (continuous sill) of rough-cut Tyndall stone; and
• Those features that relate to the F.W. Woolworth Company, including its sign that outlines the building name and construction date.