Walker Scott, also Walker-Scott or Walker's, was a chain of department stores in San Diego and surrounding area from 1935 to 1986 and had eight branches at the time of its closure. [1] It was founded by Ralf Marc (or R.M.) Walker and George A. Scott.
Trained under Arthur Letts at Los Angeles' Broadway department store, [2] Ralf Marc Walker was the co-founder/co-worker owner of the 125,000-square-foot department store known as the Fifth Street Store at Fifth and Broadway in downtown Los Angeles, established in 1905. [3] Walker also owned what would later become known as the Houdini Mansion in Laurel Canyon. He died six months before the opening of the San Diego store on October 3, 1935.
George A. Scott (b. Scotland, 1907 — d. United States, 1993) was a protégé of Walker, who had sent him to the New York University of Retailing and had treated him as a son; the two men had a very close personal relationship. [1]
In 1935, the former Holzwasser's department store building, in San Diego's downtown shopping district at the northwest corner of 5th and Broadway, had been sitting empty for over two years after the 1933 liquidation of Holzwasser's, once San Diego's largest department store. [4] The Spanish Colonial Revival building had been built in 1919; John Terrel Vawter was the architect.
Scott and Walker traveled to San Diego to investigate the possibilities of opening a branch of Walker's in the ex-Holzwasser space, and decided to do so. They renovated the interior and the first and second floors of the exterior; the Quayle Brothers were the architects for this renovation. [5] Seven days before the planned grand opening, Walker died, on September 25, 1935.
Seven days later, on October 2, Scott opened the store with Mr. Walker's widow, Eliza Fitzgerald Walker, who became president of the company while Scott took the position of vice president. Present at the opening reception were Arthur H. Marston, son of George W. Marston, who had attended the Holzwasser's opening fifteen years before, and Charles S. Holzwasser, who had owned the by-then-defunct Holzwasser store that had occupied the site. [5]
The store employed 503 people at opening of which 482 were local from San Diego. First year sales volume was $800,000. Escalators were added and the store was expanded into the Owl Drug building to the west. in 1954, the store was renamed Walker Scott. [5]
Three full-line stores opened in the 1970 fiscal year, and sales for that year were around $36 million, with earnings of $850,000. There were 525,000 square feet (48,800 m2) of retail space across the stores, with an expected 70% increase in the year to follow, with new stores planned for Solana Beach, Palm Springs, Genessee Shopping Center in Clairemont, City of Orange (The City Shopping Center), [6] Point Loma at Sport Arena Way Shopping Center, a small store in Coronado and College Grove Shopping Center near Lemon Grove. [7]
In 1984-5 Walker Scott eliminated major-appliance departments and de-emphasizing hardline areas such as housewares and small appliances. In January 1985, facing competition from other stores, the firm closed its downtown and La Jolla stores, leaving it with 12 outlets. Later that same year, Walker Scott sold to Los Angeles retailer Desmond's & Associates. In November 1986 Walker Scott closed its remaining stores. [8]
Branches and their years of opening: [9] [10]
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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 A. and Edwin E. 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.
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