page_title: Woodward & Lothrop
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Woodward & Lothrop / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Exterior view of the Woodward &amp; Lothrop flagship store in Washington, looking NW from the intersection of 10th &amp; F Streets NW. The smaller store inset into the corner is Rich's Shoes, which continued in business at the same location at least into the 1950s.
context_page_description: Woodward & Lothrop was a department store chain headquartered in Washington, D.C. Woodward & Lothrop was the capital's first department store, opening in 1887. Woodies, as it was often nicknamed, maintained stores in the Mid-Atlantic United States. Its flagship store was a fixture of Washington, D.C.'s downtown shopping district, with Garfinckel's, and in the late 1990s the center of controversy over competing visions for DC's urban renewal.
context_section_description: Samuel Walter Woodward (1848 – August 2, 1917) and Alvin Mason Lothrop (1847–1912) opened a dry goods store in Chelsea, Massachusetts, in 1873, and maintained several stores in the Boston area. In partnership with Charles E. Cochrane, on February 8, 1880 they moved to Washington. For many years, their department store would sponsor a "Founders Day Sale" in early February to commemorate the move.
  Woodward, Lothrop & Cochrane opened at 705 Market Space (now the United States Navy Memorial) at the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue and 7th Street N.W., in Washington, D.C.'s downtown shopping district. The first store was so successful that within a year, they moved to a larger location at 921 Pennsylvania Avenue. After flooding in 1886, they moved again to the corner of 11th and F Streets NW. Woodward and Lothrop purchased Cochrane's share of the partnership, and the new store was renamed Woodward & Lothrop.
  Woodies expanded into suburban shopping malls after World War II, but the owning families resisted expansion by amalgamation, and the chain grew slowly. It became a target of takeover attempts in the 1980s, resisting a leveraged buyout by Ronald Baron in February 1984 but accepting a $277 million bid later that year from Detroit shopping center mogul A. Alfred Taubman. 
  But Taubman had incurred substantial debt during his '80s acquisitions, which included the Philadelphia-based Wanamaker's department stores in 1986 as well as Sotheby's auction house and various properties. The early 1990s recession, while historically mild, disproportionately impacted real estate and department store retail. The greater Washington area was also affected by sharp reductions in defense spending after the end of the Cold War, leading to a loss of consumer confidence.
  Woodward & Lothrop, Inc., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on January 18, 1994, with $608 million in total assets and $659 million in total liabilities. Drastic cost-cutting and increased sales figures did not return the firm to profitability, however, and the chain, including its John Wanamaker subsidiary, was liquidated. On June 21, 1995, seven of the remaining Woodward & Lothrop locations were sold to J. C. Penney and the rest plus the Wanamaker's locations were sold to May Department Stores Company. By November 1995, all Woodies stores had completed liquidation sales and were permanently closed.
caption: Woodward & Lothrop store in Washington, D.C. circa 1910s
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