S. H. Kress Co - Oakland

August, 1926 ¹

S. H. Kress Co. was a national chain of "five and dime" stores across the country. A large Kress store was built at 14th Street and Broadway in 1926. ¹ The building was torn down in [ __? ].

The store opened to great fanfare on August 2, 1926. As was the case with many other Kress stores, it was designed by their in-house team of architects and designers. It featured a 76 foot long candy counter, and a 150 foot long lunch counter.

Kress (and Woolworth's) refused service to blacks at the lunch counters in its southern stores. Across the country, civil rights activists organized pickets and sit-ins in response. Locally, one of the protesters was C. L. Dellums. ²

By 1971, the downtown store had closed [?], and Kress was at the Eastmont Mall. ⁵

Although the Kress building in Oakland was torn down, a beautiful Kress store in Berkeley is still standing. ³

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