Jay Jacobs Opens First Store in Seattle, 1960

Arcadia

Jay Jacobs opened his first “store of fashion for young women” at downtown Seattle's Fifth Avenue and Pine Street in 1960. Six years later, Jacobs had added menswear, expanded his downtown store to three floors, and opened five suburban branches. The firm eventually grew to more than 300 stores throughout the west, but overexpansion and undercapitalization led to its 1999 demise. The downtown Jay Jacobs is now a Gap. (Seattle Public Library.)

As featured in Images of America - Vanishing Seattle.

Arcadia - Home of the iconic Images of America series and publisher of thousands of hyper-local hometown history books.

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