Which retail chain was founded by Frank Winfield Woolworth in 1879?

The retail chain founded by Frank Winfield Woolworth in 1879 was the F. W. Woolworth Company.

Woolworth opened his first five-cent store in Utica, New York, on 22 February 1879. That shop failed within a few months, but he quickly tried again in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where the business succeeded. The chain became famous for fixed-price merchandise sold through “five-and-dime” stores.

Woolworth’s approach helped modernize retail. Rather than keeping nearly everything behind a counter, his stores displayed goods where customers could examine and select them. Fixed prices also reduced the haggling common in many nineteenth-century shops. Woolworth later expanded with his brother Charles and other affiliated store operators.

The corporate timeline can cause confusion: the first store opened in 1879, while the F. W. Woolworth Company was incorporated in 1905 and later consolidated the affiliated chains. The company closed its final American Woolworth stores in 1997 and eventually became Foot Locker, but the original chain remains the canonical answer to this question.