Olds & King
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Olds, Wortman & King Department Store
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Portland Historic Landmark
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Olds, Wortman & King building in 2011.
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| Location | 921 SW Morrison Street Portland, Oregon |
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| Coordinates | 45°31′13″N 122°40′53″W / 45.520203°N 122.681409°WCoordinates: 45°31′13″N 122°40′53″W / 45.520203°N 122.681409°W |
| Area | 0.92 acres (0.37 ha) |
| Built | 1910 |
| Architect | Charles Aldrich; Doyle, Patterson & Beach (interior) |
| Architectural style | 20th Century American Commercial |
| NRHP reference # | 91000057 |
| Added to NRHP | February 20, 1991 |
Olds, Wortman & King, also known as Olds & King, was a department store in Portland, Oregon, United States, established under a different name in 1851 and becoming Olds & King in 1878, on its third change of ownership. The store was renamed Olds, Wortman & King in 1901; Olds & King again in 1944; and Rhodes in 1960. Moving several times within the downtown Portland area, the store settled at 10th & Morrison in 1910, in a large new building that remained in operation as a department store until 1974 and is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Since 1976, the building has been known as the Galleria.
The company traces its ancestry to a small store established in 1851 by Henry Corbett at the intersection of Front and Oak streets in downtown Portland; it was the city's first general merchandise store. Later in the 1850s, the store moved to Front & Taylor and was operated by brothers Robert and Finley McLaren, although Corbett continued to be a principal supplier of goods for the store. John Wilson purchased the store in 1856. Wilson's store moved in 1868, to Front Street near Morrison Street. In 1878, Wilson sold the shop to William Parker Olds, who had worked as a clerk there since 1869, and Olds' stepfather, Samuel Willard King, and the business became Olds & King, or Olds & King's. At that time, the store was located at 147 3rd Street. It moved again in 1881, 1887 and 1891, but never very far.
John Wortman joined the firm in 1890, and later Hardy C. Wortman also purchased into it, leading eventually to its renaming as Olds, Wortman & King at the beginning of 1901. The store's location since 1891 was 5th & Washington, but growth in business led the owners to begin planning in 1908 for a move to a larger building.
In 1909–1910, the company built its large new store in the block bounded by Morrison, Alder, 10th and 9th streets in downtown. The new building was five stories tall, plus a basement, and was the first store in the Northwest to occupy an entire city block (200 by 200 feet (61 m × 61 m) in downtown Portland). The site had previously been occupied by the mansion of Sylvester Pennoyer, a former Oregon governor (1886–1895) and Portland mayor (1896–1898). The new store opened on July 30, 1910, with an estimated 25,000 people visiting on opening day. The old store was closed upon the opening of the new one. The new location was criticized by some as being too far from the central business district, which generally extended a few blocks from the waterfront at that time, but within a few years the business district had expanded westwards.
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