F. W. Woolworth Company Co. had the first five-and-dime stores, which sold discounted general merchandise at fixed prices, usually five or ten cents, undercutting the prices of other local merchants. Woolworth, as the stores popularly became known, was one of the first American retailers to put merchandise out for the shopping public to handle and select without the assistance of a sales clerk. Earlier retailers had kept all merchandise behind a counter and customers presented the clerk with a list of items they wished to buy. After working in Augsbury and Moore dry goods store in Watertown, New York, Frank Winfield Woolworth obtained credit
Woolworth Building Tennessee, built in 1924, is a small replica of the building, standing at one-third its height. Frank Woolworth commissioned Cass Gilbert in 1910 to design a 20-story office building as the F. W. Woolworth Company's new corporate headquarters on Broadway, between Park Place and Barclay Street in Lower Manhattan, opposite City Hall. Originally designed to be high, the building was eventually elevated to . Construction was completed in 1912 and the building opened on April 24, 1913. President Woodrow Wilson turned the lights on by way of a button in Washington, D.C. that evening. The Woolworth Building was 60 stories