The Army and Navy store on Main Street used to be the place to go for low prices and selection and fun. It had everything and at low, low prices.
This Scribbler bought his last pair of toe rubbers there when no one else sold them. I’ve kept them as a sort of collectible.
With all the merchandise bought at cents on the dollar and founder Sam Cohen’s motto: “Buy Cheap. Sell cheap. Pass the saving on,” the small chain grew, operating for 101 years.
In the depths of the Great Depression in 1933, Army and Navy expanded with a Moose Jaw store, located on the north side of the cultural centre.
Store merchandise bought from overstocked stores, excess manufacturers’ inventory, closeout and bankruptcy sales also included many odd items.
We all have our top Army and Navy stories. Mine relates to the day my partner/wife and I went into the local store after work one day.
Those shiny blue suits just jumped out at us. The price jumped at us too: a whole $69 for this cool material.
As city editor of the Moose Jaw Times-Herald, Yours Truly was in the market for a new suit. In those days we were expected to dress like businesspeople, not like panhandlers.
Anyway, we agreed I had to try on the jacket. I pulled the jacket off the hangar, noticing the arms seemed rather bent at the elbow.
Covering my back with the jacket, I awkwardly slipped my right arm into the sleeve.
My arm went halfway down and stuck in the elbow like a bone in your throat. I wriggled the arm to pull out. No matter what I did I was stuck.
There I was in the middle of the clothing aisle with the shiny blue suit jacket hanging on my arm.
Through considerable writhing and gentle pulling by my partner/wife, we finally removed the suit from my arm.
Checking the label, I noticed the suit was made in Bulgaria, leading to the conclusion that Bulgarians had short arms and wide shoulders. Or, more likely, this batch of suits was sewn by tailors on a drunken binge.
“Now I know why the price is $69,” I commented.
The Army and Navy was a staple of almost every shopping trip. Some people made fun of the place; those same people were red-faced when found shopping in the store.
The Moose Jaw Army and Navy closed in 2000, about a year after the owner, Sam Cohen’s granddaughter “cleaned up” the store by removing all the merchandise clogging the aisles.
With less merchandise, sales fell and the store lost money.
Actually, the days of small family chain discount stores were coming to an end as competition from larger discount chains pushed up prices of distressed merchandise.
Army and Navy hung in with five stores — Langley. B.C., New Westminster, B.C., Vancouver, Edmonton, and Calgary. The stores were closed for the pandemic lockdown, then permanently with the pandemic cited as the reason
The pandemic was a good excuse, but the fate of the Army and Navy was sealed years ago by the online retailer Amazon, whose retail partners sell distressed merchandise, and by online sites like overstock.com.
What was Canada’s first discount retail chain is now just a memory.
Ron Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
