Then and Now: Superfluities Shop
1941: Traffic passes the curving Dodd Block building on Riverside Avenue near Monroe Street, which was the location of the Superfluities Shop, a thrift store opened to collect donations and raise money for the war effort during World War II. The location had been the Mower and Flynne dry goods store, which moved in 1940, opening the space for the fundraising shop in November 1940. The named changed to Victory Shop in 1942 and closed in 1945. The Dodd Block was torn down in 1965 to clear the way for the new federal building. (Spokesman-Review photo archives)
In 1940, the people of the United States were hearing reports of devastating German attacks on Britain and looking for ways to send relief. It was a year before there would be direct U.S. involvement in Europe.
Mrs. Howard C. Paulsen, along with a group of society women, founded a Spokane chapter of Bundles for Britain in September 1940 and began collecting donations of clothing and linens in an office in the Paulsen Building, which her family owned. In November 1940, the group opened the Superfluities Shop, the common term for a thrift store used to raise money, at 926 W. Riverside Ave. in the Dodd Block of downtown Spokane. It was run by Mrs. Charles Hemingway Jones, who had run a similar shop during the World War I. The group’s leaders spoke to clubs and churches to get donations.
At the same time, women in Spokane joined in the national movement to knit garments for soldiers and civilians in Europe. Bundles for Britain took donations of wool yarn and shipped it out to those who could knit sweaters, mittens, scarves and socks for the war effort. Spokane knitters from the Bundles group and the Red Cross, eventually totaling approximately 360 participants, met weekly for work sessions at the Spokane Amateur Athletic Club.
By the end of 1940, more than 500 pounds of donated clothing and knitted goods were being shipped each week. By September 1941, 21 tons of clothing had been shipped to England. Volunteers had inspected, repaired and laundered each garment.
By the middle of 1942, with donations overwhelming the British relief effort, the Spokane shop changed its name to the Victory Shop with a new mission “to provide comforts and necessities for the United States forces: Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and Merchant Marine.”
The Victory Shop focused on raising money for whatever servicemen needed. One large donation to the Red Cross helped open a snack bar for servicemen in transit in May 1945 at Galena Field, which had opened in 1942 and is today’s Fairchild Air Force Base.
The Victory Shop closed in October 1945.