Businesses Past...

by Richard D. L. Fulton

Waynesboro’s W.T. Grant Company

The W.T. Grant stores, a chain of department stores, were established by William Thomas Grant when he opened his first store (dubbed as the W. T. Grant Co. 25 Cent Store) in 1906 in Lynn, Massachusetts.

As the sole store evolved into a nationwide chain of some 1,200 stores, Grant’s success was attributed to his stores offering a wide variety of reasonably priced goods, a diverse range of products (organized into “departments”), and the ability to offer credit (with no credit check and a low-minimum repayment).

The story of the Waynesboro W. T. Grant department store is typical of those urban stores throughout the existence of the company, even up to and including the introduction of a Grant City at the Waynesboro Mall as part of an eleventh-hour attempt to establish a suburban presence, in an effort to save the company from going under.

The three-story Waynesboro W. T. Grant department store (known officially as store #564), located at 81 West Main Street, opened on November 30, 1929, as per an advertisement (headlined, “Your New Grant Store is Ready”) that was placed in the November 29, 1929, edition of The (Waynesboro) Record Herald.

Several businesses were located at 81 West Main Street prior to its occupation by Grant. In 1908, the building was listed as a residence when the building, and all of the property contained within it, were sold at public auction, according to a legal advertisement posted in the July 11, 1908, edition of The (Waynesboro) Record Herald. 

It appears that at least two hardware stores had occupied the premises prior to Grant, one being C. H. Sachs & Co., and an older occupant having been C.W. Sexton & Company.

According to The Record Herald of January 9, C.W. Sexton had installed the first electric streetlight on Main Street in front of his 81 West Main Street store—the future site of W. T. Grant—in January 1914.

In addition to general merchandise, Grant stores also featured in-store eateries. The in-store lunch counters were branded as “The Skillet,” and its in-store restaurants were branded as “The Brandon House.” The restaurant even had its own mascot, a pilgrim named ‘Bucky Bradford’ (a blonde-haired male figure, attired in a blue “pilgrim” outfit, holding a yellow disk bearing the words, “It’s Yum Tum Time”).

In the end, W.T. Grant’s easy in-store credit generosity, combined with the company’s focus on establishing urban stores (while ignoring suburbia—until it was too late), had all combined to spell doom for Grant’s department store empire, although the company’s founder, Grant, would not live to see the end of his enterprise.

Apparently, realizing it too late, Grant attempted to make in-roads in the suburban environment, even resorting to opening a Grant City at the Waynesboro Mall. (The writer still has two metal cabinets marked “Grant,” purchased at one of the Grant City’s going-out-of-business sales,  which had taken place in another state at the time). The mall store (Grant store #1418) held its grand opening on August 1, 1973.

An auction was held on May 26, 1965, in order to liquidate the contents of the 81 West Main Street Grant store, which included sales stock, as well as Grant’s office and restaurant equipment, according to an advertisement placed in The Gettysburg Times.

Two years after the 1972 death of William Grant, the Grant Company shuttered its doors in what was described as having been the then-second biggest store in United States history.

The Waynesboro Mall’s Grant City was one of the last 359 Grant stores to be closed.

So, why the demise of the old, classic department stores in general? 

In a research paper entitled, “From Main Street to Mall: The Rise and Fall of the American Department Store,” by Vicki Howard, University of Essex, Howard wrote that “after World War II, suburban growth and the ubiquity of automobiles had shifted the seat of economic prosperity to malls and shopping centers. The subsequent rise of discount big-box stores and electronic shopping accelerated the pace at which local department stores were shuttered or absorbed by national chains.”

*Special thanks offered to Wes Smith, Administrator, W.T. Grant Co., Facebook Page, for contributing information applicable to the writing of this article.