Webb's a.k.a. H. S. Webb, was a department store based in

Glendale, California Glendale is a city in the San Fernando Valley and Verdugo Mountains regions of Los Angeles County, California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents ac ...

, the first in that city.

Origins

The store was founded by Harry S. Webb (d. 1947) in 1917 in Downtown Glendale in a single room. It had locations in the

Glendale Fashion Center Glendale Fashion Center was a regional shopping mall in Glendale, California anchored by department stores, which today is the site of a large power center by the same name. The center opened in 1966 anchored by a J. W. Robinson's department stor ...

and in

Redlands, California Redlands ( ) is a city in San Bernardino County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 73,168, up from 68,747 at the 2010 census. The city is located approximately west of Palm Springs and east of Lo ...

. Ned Blanc purchased the store from Webb in 1949 but kept the name. In 1951 Blanc expanded the original store at 139 N. Brand into the adjacent Lawson Building. There was a fire at the store in 1977. Webb's moved to a former J. C. Penney store about half the size of Webb's original store, on the southeast corner of Brand Blvd. and California Avenue.

Glendale Fashion Center

Two years later, it moved to the

in a space vacated by

Joseph Magnin The Joseph Magnin Company was a high-end specialty department store founded in San Francisco, California, by Joseph Magnin, 4th son of Isaac Magnin founder of the I. Magnin department store. Joseph Magnin Co. and I. Magnin Co. were rivals. His ...

when that store moved to the

Glendale Galleria The Glendale Galleria is a large three-story regional shopping center and office complex located in downtown Glendale, California, United States. Opened in 1976 with 1.6 million square feet of retail space, it is the fourth largest mall in Los An ...

. Webb's expanded the space from 30,000 to 67,500 square feet and moved into it on September 27, 1979.

Decline

For half a century, Webb's was the only major department store in Glendale. Competition first came from

J. W. Robinson's J. W. Robinson Co., ''Robinson's'', was a chain of department stores operating in the Southern California and Arizona area, previously with headquarters in Los Angeles, California. History Joseph Winchester Robinson was a merchant from Waltham, ...

which opened in the

in 1966, and then from the

, which opened in 1976 and a second phase in 1982. That mall offered branches of The Broadway,

Buffums Buffums, originally written as Buffums' with an apostrophe, was a chain of upscale department stores, headquartered in Long Beach, California. The Buffums chain began in 1904, when two brothers from Illinois, Charles A. and Edwin E. Buffum, ...

J. C. Penney Penney OpCo LLC, doing business as JCPenney and often abbreviated JCP, is a midscale American department store chain operating 667 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. Departments inside JCPenney stores include Mens, Womens, Boys, Girl ...

Mervyn's Mervyn's was an American middle-scale department store chain based in Hayward, California, and founded by Mervin G. Morris (1920–2021). It carried national brands of clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, electronics ...

and

Nordstrom Nordstrom, Inc. () is an American luxury department store chain headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and founded by John W. Nordstrom and Carl F. Wallin in 1901. The original Wallin & Nordstrom store operated exclusively as a shoe store, a ...

. Sales peaked at $8 million in 1974, but averaged about $5 million per year during its last six years in business. The Glendale store closed in 1985 due to falling sales. It had 30,000 charge account holders at that time.

Redlands store

The Redlands store measured 42,000 square feet and opened on August 30, 1973 in the

Citrus Village Citrus Village is a shopping center in Redlands, California, on Redlands Boulevard between E. Palm Ave and E. Cypress Ave. One of the earliest planned shopping centers in the area and upon its opening on November 2, 1959, the largest retail area ...

shopping center, a small center with 16 specialty stores.

References

{{History of Retail in Southern California Defunct department stores based in Greater Los Angeles Retail companies based in California Glendale, California Companies based in Glendale, California