Then and Now: JCPenney’s Toyland

Spokane’s retail scene in the early 20th century featured stores like the Wonder, Palace and Culbertson-Grote-Rankin department stores which defined the modern shopping experience. Those stores were then sold or merged with Culbertson’s, Penneys or Bon Marché.

Retail competition was fierce, with several department stores all within a few blocks of each other and each store looked for ways to attract customers during the Christmas shopping season.

The venerable Crescent, opened in 1889, was famous for its elaborate holiday display windows, the giant fiberglass Santa above the Main Avenue entrance and an annual holiday catalog.

The term “toyland” called up images of marching toy soldiers and spinning ballerinas, became the generic term for the toy section of department stores when Christmas rolled around. “Babes in Toyland” was the name of a 1903 operetta and several entertaining adaptations for stage, film and television throughout the century.

In 1965, JCPenney’s Toyland opened in an empty storefront at 727 W. Main Ave. on the ground floor of the Colonial Hotel, built around 1900. Above the storefronts, the building had 54 hotel rooms on the second and third floors.

An early grocery store, Everybody’s Market, occupied the street level storefront from 1904 until 1926, followed by the Post Street Market, both competing with the popular Westlake Market across the street. Two smaller adjacent commercial spaces were usually clothing or jewelry stores or small lunch counters.

The most enduring business on the ground floor was the Owl Drug store, located there from around 1936 to 1963. Once the drug store vacated, JCPenney expanded there from 1965 until 1967 to compete with the Crescent’s holiday displays.

As Spokane prepared for the Expo ’74 World’s Fair, JCPenney built a new store at Post and Main that opened in 1973, then the former JCPenney was remodeled for a new Nordstrom store. The Colonial Hotel was torn down in 1972 to create a four-story extension of the Crescent building west to Post Street.

From that 1970s building boom, Spokane retail slowly changed over the next 50 years as Montgomery Ward, JCPenney and others left for suburban locations or went out of business. The Crescent went into bankruptcy and merged with Frederick and Nelson stores in 1988 and finally closed in 1992.