The "Memories of the Watt & Shand Store" Story

Santa at the top of the ladder at Watt & Shand
Department Store in downtown Lancaster, PA 

It was an ordinary day.  Santa Claus is coming to town and mom, my brother Steve and I are going to go watch him head up the ladder on the fire engine to the top of Watt & Shand Department Store in downtown Lancaster, PA.  After lunch in the basement of the department store, my brother and I are going to visit with Santa and give him our Christmas lists.  One of my favorite days of the year.  I can remember well the arrival of Santa on the Saturday after Thanksgiving  and how excited I was to go and visit with him.  At first I was scared of the jolly old man, but when my brother was old enough to see him also, I had to act brave so he wouldn't be scared.  Previously I wrote about the crowds, the excitement and my wife's involvement as a high school student in Santa's arrival, so today my story is going to deal more with the location that Santa chose for his workshop in downtown Lancaster, PA.  The Watt and Shand Department Store has a great history to it starting back in the late 1890s.  The founders, Scot immigrants Peter Watt, James Shand  and Gilbert Thompson were looking to build a store in a wealthier area where there was very little competition.  The three, in their late 20s and early 30s, announced their intentions on February 22, 1878 and opened their "New York Store" at 20-22 East King Street in Lancaster on March 9, 1878.  The store sold a variety of foreign and domestic dry goods as well as upscale merchandise to the general public and the first item sold was a wool plaid shawl for $5, an expensive item for that time in history.  They were known for their customer service and were said to have a unwritten policy to "stay open until the last shopper had left."  Mr. Thompson died during the first year of business for the "New York Store" and the remaining two partners changed the store's name to Watt, Shand and Company.  In 1880 the store moved closer to the square in Lancaster at 8-10 East King St. and in 1885 the name was once again changed to Watt & Shand and included more space at 6 East King.  In 1896, the property at 2-4 East King was acquired and famed architect C. Emlen Urban was hired to design a new facade for the corner site.  With completion of the new building in 1898, remodeling on the earlier buildings began.  Again, in 1905 the business expanded into three adjoining buildings (Rohrer's Liquor Store, Shenck's Hotel, and Marshall Rengier's Hardware Store) going to the south on South Queen Street.  In the end, the building which was designed in the Beaux Arts style unified all six attached structures with one cohesive facade.  Really neat looking place that featured a large clock that faced the square on the south-east wall and the name Watt & Shand which graced the main entrance over the same entrance.  At the time the retail floor space was 100,000 square feet and employment at the store reached 300 employees.  It was Lancaster's largest retail store and the place to be seen in Lancaster.  Its central location in downtown made it a great place to hang out with trolley cars stopping nearby and bellmen ushering people in and out of the beautiful elevators to the shopping areas and soda fountain.  Many a time I would ride the elevators with my family from floor to floor by means of a doorman as we did our Christmas shopping and I can still visualize what seemed to be hundreds of American Flags flying atop the entire Watt & Shand store.  The store thrived and remained pretty much the same until 1959 when it acquired it's next door neighbor to the east, Appel & Weber jewelry store.  In 1984 the store completed a $1 million, three-year renovation and now consisted of 220,000 Square feet.  With the addition of Lancaster's Park City Mall, a huge shopping complex in the suburbs, Watt & Shand opened as one of the anchors in the mall.  I believe that this mall was the beginning of the demise of Watt & Shand Department Store and downtown Lancaster.  The Bon-Ton Department store eventually purchased Watt & Shand who closed in 1995.  Today the building in downtown Lancaster that was once home to Watt & Shand is now the Lancaster Marriot at Penn Square and is adjacent to the Lancaster County Convention Center.  Luckily, the original facade that was designed by Urban still remains and is the front for the hotel.  I can still remember the great times I had with mom traveling to downtown and all the neat stores.  Watt & Shand still holds a spot in my heart and as Lancaster City begins its latest revival, I am glad that the Watt & Shand storefront will still be a visible part of that revival.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.

 "New York" Store, circa 1878.

Watt & Shand at Penn Square, circa 1898.  The two stores on the far right still are not part of the Watt & Shand store.

The facade has been totally completed for the Watt & Shand store, circa after 1905.

Showing some of the ornamentation of the Beaus Style architecture.

Appel & Weber store became part of Watt & Shand in 1959.

Store windows were always decorated.  It was one of my favorite items to look at on my trips to town.

Store window around the 4th of July.

Interior of the store back in the early 1900s.

Photo as the Watt & Shand building now appears.  The facade is still the same in the foreground, with the Lancaster Marriot Hotel and Lancaster County Convention Center in the background.  This is now the tallest building in the city of Lancaster.