Today's Michael Berry Show is sponsored by Wulco.

Wulco was an American-based discount retail chain that was founded in 1962 in Columbus, Ohio

by the FW Woolworth Company.

It was a full-line discount department store, unlike the five-and-dine Woolworth stores

which operated at the same time.

The creation of Wulco coincided with the expansion of suburbia across America.

Woolworth's flagship stores were still doing pretty well, but the company wanted to

tap into the growing discount department store market, without deluding its dominant

position in the variety store business.

By 1966, there were 18 locations in the United States, and the company experimented with

both Wulco and a more downscale merchandising unit called Worthmart in the mid-1960s.

Wulco was the eventual winner with customers, and the Worthmart stores were folded into

Wulco's by the 1970s.

Plans were for 30 stores to be added per year.

This led to tremendous growth as over 300 Wulco stores opened up across North America

by the mid-1970s.

Most Wulco stores sat at around 100,000 square feet, which really was quite large for a

discount department store at the time.

In order to cut costs, the stores were shrunk down to about 60,000 square feet, with

some of the excess space in the larger locations going to Jay Branham, which was an off-price

clothing retailer owned by Woolworths.

By 1979, it had become clear that the earlier cost saving plan would not be enough to save

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