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Overview

This was the third location of George Marston's thriving dry goods store in San Diego, on the northeast corner of corner of 5th Avenue and F Street in San Diego's central business district. Marston operated here from 1882 until 1896, when he opened his fourth store on the southwest corner of 5th Avenue and C Street.

Alteration

Like many thriving dry goods store owners of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, Marston periodically outgrew his available floorspace, and need to rent space in neighboring buildings. He wrote: "I carried on at that corner for fourteen years and established the business on a firm footing. The original salesroom was 25 by 70. Later on three more rooms were were acquired and in 1895 I was paying rent to four different landlords." (See Hamilton Marston, "A Tribute to George Marston," Journal of San Diego History, vol. 15, no. 4, Fall 1969, accessed 05/10/2018.) Many early dry goods stores of this period consisted of a rambling assortment of spaces built at different times, cobbled together to provide room for an expanding assortment of new departments.

Kathleen Flanigan wrote in her study of the work of architect William S. Hebbard that this architect remodeled Marston's Dry Goods Store #3: "[Hebbard] rendered alterations to the Marston Store on Fifth and E, which included the addition of a store room and the installation of a plate glass front." (See Kathleen Flanigan, "William Sterling Hebbard," Journal of San Diego History, vol. 33, no. 1, Winter 1987.)

PCAD id: 8947