Woodward's Stores Ltd. was a department store chain that operated in Alberta and British Columbia, Canada, for 101 years, before its sale to the Hudson's Bay Company. History Charles Woodward established the first Woodward store at the corner of Main and Georgia Streets in Vancouver in 1892. On September 12, 1902, Woodward Department Stores Ltd. was incorporated and a new store was built on the corner of Hastings and Abbott Streets. In 1926 a store was opened in Edmonton and by the late 1940s the company operated numerous stores in British Columbia and Alberta. Stores opened included Victoria in 1945, Port Alberni in 1948, Park Royal Shopping Centre in West Vancouver in 1950, New Westminster in 1954, Westmount Shopper's Park in Edmonton in 1955, Oakridge Centre (where Woodward's was the owner and anchor tenant) in 1959, Chinook Centre in Calgary in 1960, Victoria in 1963, Northgate Mall in Edmonton in 1963, and Prince George and Guildford Town Centre in Surrey in 1966, Southgate Centre in Edmonton in 1970, Mayfair Shopping Centre in Victoria in 1974, Cherry Lane in Penticton in 1975, Sevenoaks in Abbotsford in 1975, Landsdown Park in Richmond in 1977, and Coquitlam Centre in 1979. Woodward's was a central feature of the retail scene in southwestern British Columbia for much of the twentieth century. The chain was distinctive in that stores included a large supermarket known as the "Food Floor". At Oakridge Centre and Chinook Centre (Calgary), the Woodward's Food Floor had a conveyor system from the cash registers out to a structure in the parking lot. Upon request, the bag boys would pack customers' groceries into numbered bins and send the bins through the conveyor system. Then customers would take tags with matching numbers out to the structure, and more bag boys would load the groceries from the matching bins into the customers' cars. This service was called the Grocery Parcel Depot in Oakridge and Parcel Pickup in Chinook. When Woodward's sold the Food Floor chain - long known for its quality and its line of unusual specialities - to Safeway, the flagship store’s food floor became a reduced-size IGA supermarket, as Safeway showed no interest in that location. Many western Canadians fondly remember Woodward's famous "$1.49 Day" sales (said aloud as "dollar forty-nine day"), held on the first Tuesday of every month. These sales were advertised widely on radio and in newspapers, including a distinctive jingle