In 1981, the Sault’s Isabel Monaco worked as assistant general manager of Sault Ste. Marie’s Woolco store on Queen Street East, a bustling spot for shoppers in the heart of downtown.
When Monaco and Harvey White, Woolco’s general manager, were summoned to a meeting by senior management at Woolco’s corporate headquarters in Toronto, the two wondered ‘what’s wrong?’
The news was that White was being transferred to another Woolco in Hamilton.
Monaco was to become the Sault Woolco store’s new general manager.
As a result, Monaco, already a 36-year employee of Woolworth's/Woolco stores, became the first female Woolco store manager in Canada.
“Yes I was proud, but you work harder when you’re the first (female manager),” Monaco told SooToday.
“I was quite proud because I was the first female manager they ever had. I thought ‘I’m going to do well’ and I put my best into it, and it turned out that they put other female managers in (in Woolco stores in other communities after Monaco blazed the trail).”
Monaco had a large number of staff working for her.
She said she wasn’t uncomfortable spending time in the manager’s office upstairs, but preferred to be with her staff on the sales floor.
Many of those staff members were people she had already known for some time.
Monaco said she started working in an unpaid role for the local Woolworth store when she was 12 years old, helping customers find what they were looking for and arranging merchandise.
She was officially hired by the Woolworth's store when she was 16.
Monaco travelled outside the Sault, assisting in the opening of other Woolco stores across Canada.
Many Saultites will remember Woolco as a department store offering a bit of everything for everyone, from food and clothing to furniture, from jewelry to sporting goods.
Many will remember its underground customer parking lot and ‘$1.44 days.’
“The ladies used to buy nylons. They were $1.99 and they got them for $1.44 and they would stay in line to get them. People would walk out with tons of paper towels, soap, detergent for $1.44 - they used to buy boxes of it. You'd be surprised at the number of people that tell me they remember $1.44 days,” Monaco said.
On $1.44 days, Woolco’s doors would open, customers quickly grabbing shopping carts and concentrating on the department store’s bargains along the long middle aisle.
It was busy, but also a social occasion where friends greeted friends while stocking up on essential items like bread, fabric softener, facial tissue and toilet paper, shopping carts piled high with such items.
“I had good people working for me,” Monaco said.
“I never had a problem with the staff. We talked about things. What decisions were made were between them and me, what work would be done that day and what we were supposed to do.”
“The only problem was when people came in and stole cigarettes,” Monaco recalled.
“One day I was walking down the aisle and I saw a young fellow with a jacket on his shoulders but his sleeves were full. So I pulled him over and said ‘excuse me, your sleeves are dangling. What’s in them?’ He said ‘nothing.’ He started to run and he had two cartons of cigarettes. I ran after him first and then my stock boy came and we overtook him.”
A no-nonsense Monaco called police to take the shoplifter away.
In its day, Woolco was a major employer, a landmark on Queen Street and a player in the downtown economy.
“We started with just a little bit of merchandise. When the supervisors came from Toronto they decided it was a good spot and said ‘let’s go with a good assortment of merchandise, so that everybody can shop here,’” Monaco said.
Discussions from the F. W. Woolworth Company in Canada - ultimately owned by New York City-based F.W. Woolworth Co. Ltd. - about a Woolco store opening in the Sault as a bigger and better version of the local Woolworth's store began in 1963.
Plans for the store called for an underground parking lot and a 60,000 square foot first floor.
In the 300 block of Queen Street East, it occupied a property facing Queen Street on the north, Bay Street on the south, with the old Sault Star building on the east.
The Woolworth company proposed an investment of $2 million for the Sault Woolco store.
Construction of the building required Royal Canadian Legion Branch 25 to sell its property on Queen Street East for $84,330.
Woolworth received approval to build its Woolco store in downtown Sault Ste. Marie from city council in January 1964.
Blasting operations began in December 1964, using dynamite to cut through solid sandstone for the construction of the underground parking garage.
The old Sault Star building had some of its windows blown out from rocks blasted from the excavation. Stones the size of grapefruits ricocheted off the ceiling in the newsroom, scattering paper and notes and one desk moved several inches from its usual spot. No one was injured in the building or the construction site.
Woolco officially opened in the summer of 1965.
A large new department store - it was said locally in 1965 - would allow Sault shoppers with evening shopping six nights a week in the downtown area. At the time a restrictive closing bylaw allowed some stores to stay open for late shopping only two nights a week.
The store underwent a $500,000 renovation in 1987.
At the time, the Sault Woolco store was the first of the Toronto-based chain’s 46 Ontario stores to shift its focus to what was called “the increased buying power of working women.”
More than 40 new lines of merchandise were added to the store’s shelves while hardware, sporting goods and audio products sections were dropped. The store would specialize in affordable clothing for all ages and home decorating accessories.
In September 1990 some of those former departments were brought back - for male shoppers in particular - as a way to get customers back during an economic downturn.
The store sold hardware and houseware, bicycles, cabinets and furniture, had a larger food area and included photography, stationery, gift and pet departments.
Rumours that the store would close persisted during a time of economic recession in 1990.
It was announced in August 1991 that after 26 years of business on Queen Street, Woolco would permanently close Dec. 31 of that year.
The closure of the store - 5,200 square metres or 60,000 square feet in size - put 78 people out of work, including 34 full time employees and 32 part time employees. Another 12 were employed in the menswear department, shoe department and United Cigar Store - all licensees.
“It is going to be a sad day for Queen Street. It is going to be a sad day for a lot of people,” Isabel Monaco said at the time.
Though the news was not unexpected, Monaco said “I am still in shock. Never did I think I would see this day, but Queen Street isn’t what it once was and people would rather shop in the malls.”
There were reports of Woolco employees looking dejected in the store’s restaurant.
Some staff members and some members of the public blamed the nearby presence of Station Mall, cross border shopping and the then-new GST for Woolco’s demise.
“The Sault wasn’t ready for all that fashion (when the store shifted its focus in 1987),” Monaco said at the time, adding the change of direction would have worked better in a shopping mall.
Woolco’s closure came at the same time as that of other downtown stores such as Virene’s, Jupiter, Friedman’s and Davis Clothing.
In the early 1990s, then-Mayor Joe Fratesi said he was confident Woolco’s decision to close its Sault store would be temporary and the store would be back in a new larger location once Algoma Steel’s restructuring was complete and stability in the steel market returned.
However, in August 1991, Woolco management said there were no such plans as the chain could not find a Sault location suitable to its needs.
In December 1991 it was announced that Woolco would reopen in January 1992 as the Woolco Clearance Centre, (the smoke shop and pharmacy still there), offering discontinued items shipped from other stores across the province.
In May 1992 Woolco announced it would be closing its doors at the end of July 1992, turfing out 34 employees.
The clearance centre didn’t have enough customers to stay open.
Woolco and Woolworth's lived on in Canada until 1994.
Woolworth's closed its remaining department stores in the U.S. in 1997.
Since the Sault Woolco store closed its doors, the former retail space has had several tenants over the years.
In March 1993, the Ontario government rejected the Sault’s bid to open a casino in the old Woolco building.
The space later became home to RMH, the Sault’s first call centre, in 2000.
It has also served as home to the Sault Ste. Marie Chamber of Commerce.
The building is now home to Soo Blaster - a restaurant, bar and special events centre - and Gates College of Business, Culinary & Healthcare on Queen Street.
On the Bay Street side, it is home to Days Inn & Suites (with the old Woolco underground parking area now serving as guest parking) and the Algoma Kinniwabi Travel Association office.
“I was unhappy about it (when Woolco closed),” Monaco told SooToday.
“I miss the place,” she said, adding she would return to work there now if it still existed.
When it closed, she had been a Woolworth's/Woolco employee for nearly 50 years.
“I loved to work. I used to stay at night until nine o'clock and help the staff lock up the safe, the money bags.”
Reflecting on the store’s popularity in its day, Monaco said “I think it’s the name. Woolco was a very good store and the merchandise they carried was number one.”
- with files from the Sault Ste. Marie Public Library (SSMPL)