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

Glendale, California Glendale is a city located primarily in the Verdugo Mountains region, with a small portion in the San Fernando Valley, of Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is located about north of downtown Los Angeles. As of 2024, Glendale ha ...

, 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 and in

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

. 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 Glendale Fashion Center in a space vacated by Joseph Magnin 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 of retail space, it is the third-largest mall in Los Angeles County after Lak ...

. 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 which opened in the Glendale Fashion Center in 1966, and then from the

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

The Broadway The Broadway was a mid-level department store chain headquartered in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1896 by English-born Arthur Letts Sr., and named after what was once the city's main shopping street, the Broadway became a dominant reta ...

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 and Edwin Buffum, together wit ...

, J. C. Penney,

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, bath products, furniture, jewelry, beauty product ...

and

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

. 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 shopping center, a small center with 16 specialty stores.

References

{{History of Retail in Southern California Defunct department stores based in the San Fernando Valley Retail companies based in California Glendale, California Companies based in Glendale, California