Foot Locker is currently one America’s most successful and well-known sportswear and footwear retailers.  The retail giant operates in 20 countries and runs about 4,000 mall-based locations in the United States.  The company was technically founded in 1974, but interestingly enough, Foot Locker’s roots actually stretch back to the 1800s.

On this day, February 22nd, in 1879, Frank Woolworth opens the first Woolworth store in Utica, New York; the company would eventually become Foot Locker.  F.W. Woolworth stores were some of America’s first five-and-dime stores, where a variety of products were available to consumers for no more than ten cents. Woolworth stores sold a wide range of products, including clothing, footwear, bedding and beauty products.  Consumers loved the concept of the five-and-dime store, which led to Woolworth stores becoming cultural fixtures in shopping malls and downtowns throughout the 1950s-1970s.

The large discount store format led to the end of the five-and-dime store’s success.  Woolworth stores would steadily decline towards the turn of the century and the last Woolworth store closed in 1997.  Woolworth changed its corporate name to Venator the same year, only to change the company’s name once more in 2001 to mirror its most successful subdivision, Foot Locker.