“Like bees to a hive,” the Leavenworth Times reported in April, l893, “curious crowds milled inside and out the store from 7:30 to l0:00 to behold the store windows and enjoy a promenade through five floors of the immense new Ettenson, Woolfe & Co. building. A band played and the Leavenworth chief of police with six officers were on hand to control the throng.”
Early newspaper advertisements told of “an arc light of 100 candle power directing the way to the basement devoted to crockery. 40 gas jets and 28 arc lights illuminated each floor. Counters offered dry goods, clothing from lace to jeans, furniture and carpets.”
The expansion, including 70,000 square feet of floor space, at a cost of $50,000, resulted from a devastating fire a year earlier. Numerous advertisements from that time picture the business as The Big Store.
Imagine the excitement that prevailed in Leavenworth back then with the opening of such a grand department store.
Henry Ettenson had emigrated to America at the age of 16, in 1866, to avoid compulsory military duty required of all Russian citizens. For two years he was a peddler in New York, selling matches, and described himself as a wholesale lumber merchant. He learned the English language through interaction with his customers.
Ettenson arrived in Leavenworth in l868 and worked as a peddler with a wagon for two years, before opening a store at 214-216 So. 5th. By 1880, along with sons, Charles, Moe, and Benjamin, the Ettenson tradition was firmly grounded in the essential virtues of success, thrift and honesty. The thriving business was known as the GREAT DAYLIGHT STORE. The store was relocated to 5th and
Cherokee, remodeled in 1881, and included four floors, a mansard roof, elevator, and steam heating.
When B.B.Woolfe became his partner in 1888, the business became known as Ettenson, Woolfe, & Co.
Tragedy struck in 1938 when a cyclone toppled a portion of the uppermost
floor into the street resulting in the death of a man seated in a parked
car. At this point the entire top floor was removed.
By the late l940s, the business was sold and became known as the B.R. Phillips Furniture Store and remained in business for more than 10 years.
During WWII, a parachute factory operated in the upper floor. In 1953,
Leland Winetroub operated a business known as Lee’s Furniture, on the
southwest corner of 5th and Cherokee, and expanded in 1963, to the former Ettenson-Phillips location.
While the words “The Big Store,” painted on the west wall of the building, have always been legible over the years, evidence of bygone days has recently emerged, when John Peterson, the current owner, began the process of removing siding from the rest of the building to reveal the original character of the building itself, which had been covered over years ago during the modernization of many downtown buildings.
In his lifetime,Henry Ettenson had also owned a store in Hill City, Kan., and the old Elms Hotel, the bottling works, and nearby springs, in Excelsior Springs,Mo. Upon his death in 1909, his estate was estimated at three-quarters of a million dollars.
Leavenworth businessmen agreed, “he knew the worth of advertising using daily ads to attract customers.” One ad quoted, “Time is Money.”
In 1911, “through the munificence of Henry Ettenson, Al Rothenberg, B.Haas, B.B.Woolfe, and Abe Rosen, a chapel, walls, gates, and stone tablets were built at Mt. Zion Cemetery.”
Mary Ann Brown | Leavenworth County Historical Society
Information provided by Joan Cooper LCHS, July 10, 2013
Sources: 140th edition Leavenworth Times,1888 and October, 1909;
Ettenson album, and Jewishvilkaviskis.org.
Click HERE to see more on The Big Store.
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