Wigwam Stores Inc.
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Retail (discount department stores) |
| Founded | 1946 |
| Founder | Homer Powell |
| Headquarters | Seattle , United States |
Area served | Washington, Hawaii, Oregon, California, Arizona |
Key people | Homer Powell (founder and president until 1976), Lillian Titel (buyer, later president and CEO), Monty Ortman (president after 1977) |
| Products | Discount department store merchandise, initially army surplus goods |
Wigwam Stores Inc. was a U.S.-based discount department store chain headquartered in Seattle, with locations spanning five states: Washington, Hawaii, Oregon, California, and Arizona. When Wigwam launched its inaugural store in 1946, the discount department store model was still emerging. The company aimed to offer a broad selection of merchandise at reduced prices.
Founder
Homer Powell, the originator of Wigwam Stores, earned a history degree from Northwest Nazarene College in Nampa, Idaho. While pursuing his master's at the University of Washington under the GI Bill, he worked at a local YMCA. A pastor from Powell’s Nazarene church suggested he could earn an additional $50 by acquiring and reselling army surplus items such as refrigeration units. Although Powell never located those refrigeration machines, he became familiar with the benefits of the Surplus Property Act, which granted veterans priority access to military surplus goods, prompting him to start buying and selling surplus items.
History
Following World War II, the military was left with an excess of surplus equipment, which it sold to help recoup war expenses. As a student without capital to purchase these goods, Powell approached his basketball coach at Northwest Nazarene College for financial support. His coach, Lloyd Adler, provided a $500 loan and became Powell’s initial business partner. Combining this loan with $500 of his own funds, Powell bought $1,000 worth of sleeping bags and managed to sell them for approximately $11,000.
Powell later discovered a surplus warplane sale in Texas. Together with his brother-in-law and future partner Dallas E. Ortman, he traveled there and acquired a North American T-6 Texan trainer aircraft. Powell then traveled nationwide acquiring more army surplus products before establishing a temporary store inside a roughly 150-foot-long (46 m) tent situated opposite the Boeing aircraft plant in Seattle. This provisional outlet quickly gained popularity, generating daily sales around $5,000. By year-end, the company reported a net profit margin of 39 percent.
While Powell operated his Seattle location, Ortman ran a comparable army surplus store in Portland. Powell suggested expanding to Seattle by opening another tent store. Ortman transported about $6,500 worth of merchandise northward to join Powell's operation. With Adler joining as a partner, the trio pooled $6,500 alongside Ortman’s inventory to establish their second store. The name "Wigwam" was chosen after the traditional Native American tent dwelling.
Recognizing that army surplus supplies were finite, Powell and his partners reinvested profits from their tent stores into developing discount department stores. They hired Lillian Titel, formerly a buyer for Bloomingdale's, to oversee purchasing operations as Wigwam expanded beyond army surplus products. Titel eventually rose to become one of the nation’s top five female buyers.
Expansion
Following the recommendation of employee Marvin Shelby, Powell and his associates extended their operations to Hawaii, where Wigwam faced minimal competition. The inaugural Hawaiian outlet was launched in 1958, with Shelby appointed to manage the company's Hawaiian division. The venture thrived, eventually growing to 17 locations across the islands—15 on Oahu and two in Hilo. Some of these outlets operated under the name Dodies, a regional department store chain that Wigwam acquired.
Wigwam implemented creative strategies to attract customers in Hawaii. The company organized parking lot carnivals and occasionally featured exotic animals such as elephants to entertain shoppers. Advertising efforts were comprehensive, spanning television and radio commercials as well as print ads and coupon inserts in newspapers and magazines. On one notable occasion, they engaged a local radio disk jockey to attempt a world record by broadcasting nonstop for two weeks from a Honolulu store.
Poast Trading
In 1960, Titel and other partners proposed establishing an internal distribution company to reduce expenses for Wigwam. This led to the creation of Poast Trading, an acronym derived from the surnames of the founding partners: Powell, Ortman, Adler, Shelby, and Titel.
Further expansion
Towards the end of 1960, Wigwam extended its reach into Arizona; however, an existing business there already used the Wigwam name and demanded $15,000 for naming rights. The partners deemed this cost excessive and opted to brand their Arizona location as Totem instead.
The expansion continued into Southern California, where at its height the Southwest division operated 25 stores across Arizona and California. In California, Wigwam acquired Malcum and Webb's stores but retained both brand names. Additionally, some stores operated under the Wigwam name directly in California. To finance ongoing growth after entering the Southwest market, Wigwam conducted an initial public offering in 1970, selling 250,000 shares at $10 each as over-the-counter stock not listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
In 1975, a proxy battle emerged within the company when several major investors and original partner Adler advocated for seven-day weekly operations, including Sundays. Powell, a committed Nazarene, opposed Sunday openings. Consequently, the other four partners purchased Adler's shares. Powell financed this buyout by selling off the Hawaiian and Seattle divisions of Wigwam. Around this time, Powell prepared to retire from his role as president of the company.
End
In 1976, a year following the proxy contest and the divestiture of numerous outlets, Powell resigned from his role as president and relocated to Phoenix, while continuing to supervise the Phoenix division. Titel assumed the roles of president and CEO, overseeing the company’s primary stores located in California and Arizona. In 1977, one of the largest remaining locations in Glendale, California was completely destroyed by fire. Although no injuries occurred, the blaze resulted in total loss of the store and its inventory, inflicting millions of dollars in damages on the company. The Glendale store had been among the top-performing outlets. Shortly after this incident, Titel relinquished the presidency. Monty Ortman, who managed the Arizona division and was the son of Dallas Ortman, took over leadership. He proceeded to sell off the remaining assets of the company, distributing substantial profits among the remaining partners and shareholders.