Owners Hodge & Sherman opened a second-hand furniture store at 822 Zack Street in 1907 and did a brisk business. In 1913, this brick 3-story, 16,000 sq. ft., $40,000 building at Florida Ave and Polk St, known as the Friebele Building, was constructed to accommodate the company’s new store. They began selling new furniture and appliances here, keeping the old location temporarily to sell used goods. It was built so that two additional stories could be added later. They opened in 1914 and were bought out by Seminole Furniture Company in 1925, the year this photo was taken.  Seminole moved to the former Tarr Furniture location at Lafayette and Hyde Park Ave in 1941.

In 1915, F.W. Woolworth bought the old Tampa Hardware store at Polk and Franklin Streets (and opened a 3-story five and ten-cent store on the back of this building. In 1941, the same year Seminole moved out, the original Woolworths was demolished, and both lots were combined in a $250,000 renovation, making the largest Woolworth in the south. Little did they know the historical nature the store would take on in 1960 when 57 African American students staged a sit-in at the store protesting segregation. Within a year, city officials desegregated Tampa’s lunch counters. The store closed in 1992, but the signature red banner with Art Nouveau accents that once held the Woolworth’s sign survives.

 © Chip Weiner. All rights reserved