On this day in Arlington history: October 17, 1916: The Washington Herald had a multi-page advertisement from the Palais Royal Department Store in DC that invited residents of (what would be called) Arlington and northern Virginia to shop in DC.
By 1916, the area now known as Arlington County and beyond was a growing suburb of DC. Merchants in the District were becoming very aware that across the Potomac, Virginia was no longer just sleepy farmland. People who had once chosen to live in DC were starting to build homes and have their own businesses (besides farming). These new middle class areas were becoming a lucrative market. On this large ad is the delivery days and times for almost every community in what is now Arlington from Barcroft to Walker’s Chapel as well as other neighborhoods in Alexandria City and Falls Church. The message was clear, shop here and we’ll deliver your purchases. That was quite an inducement to cross the Potomac River into DC and shop at the Palais Royal.
The Palais Royal was a large department store in Washington, DC at 11th and G streets NW in the F Street shopping district. It was started in 1877 by a German immigrant named Abram Lisner. By the time the company was working to appeal to residents to the west of the Potomac River, it had grown from a dry goods store into a small chain store.
It continued to expand in a new location and by the time of this ad had 600 people working there. Eventually the Palais Royal opened two branches in Arlington in 1943 one at Arlington Farms and another at the Pentagon.
In 1924 Lisner sold it for about $5 million, and in 1946, it became Woodward & Lothrop.
