While wrapping Christmas gifts for the chickens this year, and looking for a small box that would accommodate the six small cars that "Santa" procured for the boy, I came across a small Goldwaters box in the Christmas Wrap Stash. Such a lovely box, and you know it came from Gram. I began to wonder about the history of the box, and hence, the history of Goldwaters. So here you have it. (Found on Wikipedia.)
Goldwaters department store was a chain store that was founded in Gila City, Arizona in 1860. The store moved to Phoenix in 1872. The store was founded by Michael Goldwater, grandfather to Barry Goldwater, famous politician and excellent photographer. Diamonds acquired the chain in 1983. In 1989 the family reclaimed the store logo and reinvented it as Goldwater Foods. I remember there being salsa that was sold at Jacquelines in old town Scottsdale, but not sure what else there was. Very specialty, and upmarket.
The department store was located at many malls in the Phoenix metropolitan area. In Tucson it was at El Con Mall and Foothills Mall, both of which became Diamonds in 1983 and Dillards in 1984. In Phoenix the locations were Metrocenter, Paradise Valley Mall, Park Central (!!!) and Fiesta Mall. It seems that in 1989 these stores became either May and Co. or Robinsons, all becoming Robinsons-May in 1993, except for the Park Central location. This became Office Depot, and according to Wiki, the whole of Park Central is now offices. With the monopoly that is Federated, the remaining stores became Macy's. The flagship Goldwaters store was opened in 1961 at the Scottsdale Fashion Square, and after is incarnations as May and Co. and Robinsons, is slated for demolition to become a new Barney's New York.
I can imagine the inventory in that inaugural year, the dresses, the mens suits, the kids coats. What cosmetics did they sell? I bet it was amazing. And I can imagine Gram going down there (can you imagine what Indian School looked like back then???) and finding an awesome sale. A true blast from the past.
4 comments:
so glad to see your comments about the Goldwater Department Stores. I was employed by Goldwater's from 1971 to 1975. This was probably the best job I ever had. I began as an assistant to the Personnel Director, Dean Whitacre, at the Park Central location. From there I worked at Scottsdale until the opening of the MetroCenter Store. Don Helms was the store manager and I handled the Personnel function including the hiring and training of all employees. These were wonderful days. I can still remember the names of many of the employees. The Goldwater brand and reputation were at their highest and it was a privilege to work there.
My father was Barry and I remember all the stores since the 40's! My favorite memory was going to the Adams store and terrorizing the millinary dept. I would come throught like a whirlwind and try on every hat, after I had been pulled out of there by mom, the ladies would put back all the hats just like they were. My favorite associate was Sugar Burlinggame in cosmetics. Department stores aren't the same anymore.
I worked at Park Central from 1971 til 1973 when I went to Metrocenter to work for Don Helms, then back to Park Central as a buyer from 1974 til 1977 when they moved our buying offices to Scottsdale Fashion Square. I left in 1980 and made some lifelong friends working at Goldwaters. It was the nicest store in town. My mother had shopped at the downtown store when I was a child in the 1950's. She always said they carried the very best sewing fabrics and she loved to sew.
I worked at Goldwaters at PV Mall in the early 80s. If Diamonds owned it, that's the first I've heard that. When I worked for Goldwaters they were owned by Dry Goods, Inc. That was the name on my paycheck. It was a nice store - then again department stores used to be much nicer and different from each other. There was a Diamonds at PV Mall and they had a great restaurant, like JL Hudsons back east. But there were loads of really nice people who worked at PV Goldwaters.
Post a Comment