White Front, the first Walmart

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Do you remember the Country Boys Market with its wooden floors? Walter Smiths was the place to go for clothes on the Fulton Mall. Penny Candy had great blacklight posters and don't forget Whitie's Pet Store on Blackstone. What vintage retail do you remember growing up in Fresno?
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kid1955

White Front, the first Walmart

Post by kid1955 » Wed Dec 30, 2009 7:32 am

I remember when White Front opened, it was the first of its kind in Fresno. I bought my first 8mm movie camera there with money that I saved from my paper route. The curved entrance was really funky. I no longer live in Fresno but I heard it burned down?
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gilmo
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Re: White Front, the first Walmart

Post by gilmo » Wed Dec 30, 2009 11:03 am

Great photo I forgot about the arch in the front. Wasn't (as my dad would have said) Monkey Wards out in that area of Blackstone also.

Just surfed by

Re: White Front, the first Walmart

Post by Just surfed by » Wed Dec 30, 2009 12:09 pm

Monkey Wards? Oh yeah, my recollection is when it was being built, I was hired as a security guard to watch the construction supplies. Ran my car behind a 12 year old kid on a bicycle and shouting into my PA HORN, the he was there illegally and had to vacate immediately. Only action I ever got. Oh, yeah big 'ol mean security guard throwing his weight around on a 12 year old. Grew up a tad since then. Now my 12 year old orders me around.

Jackie
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Re: White Front, the first Walmart

Post by Jackie » Wed Dec 30, 2009 4:21 pm

Holy Cow! That was shot from the past! Was White Front a chain? I think they had submarine sandwiches at a kiosk in the front of the store. My Mom thought it was a good cheap way to feed a bunch of kids.
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scottnbunty
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Re: White Front, the first Walmart

Post by scottnbunty » Tue Jan 05, 2010 1:21 pm

Yes, it was a chain, and I guess I just don't understand the nostalgic fastination with White Front, let alone why such a relatively generic, not-unique-to-Fresno commercial concern would appear on a top ten list. Harpain's Dairy, certainly; Triple JJJ Drugs, perhaps -- but White Front, huh-uh.

Guest

Re: White Front, the first Walmart

Post by Guest » Tue Jan 05, 2010 5:34 pm

As a kid we did not travel much (Selma was considered "out of town") so Fresno was my frame of reference. If it was in Fresno I assumed it originated in Fresno. So for me, White Front was my first exposure to that kind of super store retailing and I never saw one anywhere else. Same with JC Penney's, I was almost teenager before I realized that Penney's and escalators were not unique to Fresno. Once those memories are patterned by the brain, the feelings of nostalgia are not dimisnished by mere fact.
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Hamm On Wry
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Re: White Front, the first Walmart

Post by Hamm On Wry » Wed Jan 06, 2010 4:57 pm

Those subs were not at White Front, they were at K Mart. I was hired at White Front for my first (legal) job, stocking shelves and moving merchandise. I never made enough money to actually buy anything there. White Front did have a deli, but it was more of a sit down place.

Conehead_Mayor
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Re: White Front, the first Walmart

Post by Conehead_Mayor » Sun Jan 10, 2010 10:17 pm

White Front? We got your White Front right here!

http://pleasantfamilyshopping.blogspot. ... _8544.html
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DJ

Re: White Front, the first Walmart

Post by DJ » Tue Jan 12, 2010 10:16 pm

We were sitting at home one afternoon, when we heard on the local FM radio station, "Come to White Front and meet Cheech & Chong"! Well, we were in the car heading down there in mere moments, expecting to have to push through a crowd of people to meet them. We always entered through the back entrance because it was closest to the record section where we expected them to be. We walked in and to our surprise, there sitting at a school type lunch table were the infamous duo with NO ONE there but them!! We spent at least 45 minutes talking to them and laughing with them at all the people walking by staring at these two "Long-Haired Oddballs". Not one person knew who they were! They were "cutting-up" for us, giving a personal "Live' performance from tracks off of there debut album, "Big Bamboo"!! It felt to me as if people were afraid of them! We laughed with them until I felt ill! They did the whole "Dave's Not Here" skit once they found out that was my name! We had a BLAST and no one EVER approached them while we were there! That will forever be my treasured memory of White Front!

Christopher Stone
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Re: White Front, the first Walmart

Post by Christopher Stone » Mon Apr 19, 2010 2:15 pm

Yes, there were White Front stores up and down the West Coast. I believe Zodys bought the chain in the mid-late 1970s.

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