Variety store The originators of the concept were the Woolworth Bros., in July 1879. Woolworth Bros. later became F. W. Woolworth Company or just "Woolworth's." On 21 June 1879, Frank Winfield Woolworth opened his first successful five-cent store in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, after a failed attempt with a store he opened on 22 February 1879, in Utica, New York. Frank soon brought his brother Charles Sumner "Sum" Woolworth into the business. Together they opened a second store in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on 18 July 1879. Before they started their own stores, the Woolworth brothers worked for Augsbury and Moore, a dry goods store in
Charles Sumner Woolworth Street, and in Ottawa on Sparks Street. He followed those with eight stores in Canada, west of the Rocky Mountains, followed by a return to the US with several store California, including one in South Broadway, Los Angeles, California. He opened stores in Tacoma, Washington, and Sherbrooke, Quebec, and then a very large store in Market Street, San Francisco, California, mere weeks before the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. In 1912, each of the owners in the syndicate of Woolworth affiliated stores agreed to incorporate all 596 of their stores, as one entity, as "F. W. Woolworth Company". The merger generated