By John Rhodes
Special to The Chatham Voice
The Five and Dimes once ruled the retail domain of King Street as they did most main streets of North America in that age.
This segment of retail first appeared in Chatham in 1900 with the opening of the Thornton and Douglas Store at the southwest corner of King and Fifth streets. It was located in the new Victoria Block which still stands and has recently been through a major restoration. This space is now home to the Sonya Roe Jewellery store which I think to be one of the most attractive retail spaces in Chatham.
Thornton and Douglas was an inexpensive supplier of men’s and boys’ ready-to-wear but was soon replaced by a Knox 5, 10 and 15 cent store, which was a division of the Woolworth chain.
Woolworth’s Knox was a great success at this site and remained here until the latter 1950s.
Not long after the establishment of the Knox Store, F.H. Brewster established a similar operation at 85 (107) King Street West; this would be in the Taylor Williamson Block which still stands and is the ancient building to the immediate east of the large condo project at the upper bend of King Street.
I believe the Brewster store dated from 1908. The store manager was J.W. Schmitt, followed by J.W. Nichols, R.Y. Wemyss, Louis Tettlebaum and R.F. Crabb.
Mr. Tettlebaum is interesting in that he would have been among Chatham’s earliest Jewish merchants but Mr. Tettlebaum would not have been the first, as there had been Jewish merchants and Jewish skilled tradesmen in Chatham Since the 1850s.
The first of the Jewish merchants, that I can account, would have been Charles Saurman who was a boot and shoe maker located of the north side of King Street, slightly east of the upper bend
I will keep his story short as I wish to expand it, in future columns.
