When an epic department store battle broke out in Lewes, it was all about deep discounts

The rivalry between Outten’s Drug Store and Mustard and Company in Lewes was not as dogged as the one between New York department store giant, Macy’s and Gimbel’s, but the competition was intense.

Elmer Outten, according to Betty Grunder, writing in the November 1999 issue of the Journal of the Lewes Historical Society, was considered a “mover and shaker” in Lewes.

Born in Philadelphia in 1865, Outten graduated from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy in 1887, and shortly afterward he opened a drug store in Lewes on Second Street. Five years later, he built a larger drug and department store on the corner of Second Street and Savannah Road.

Mustard and Company had deep roots in Lewes. In operation by the Mustard family before the Civil War, the company had connections in China, and it sold a variety of goods at its “Old village drug store” in Lewes, including farm and garden seeds and implements, an assortment of soaps, and leather goods.

The offerings of both stores were not confined to medicines and health products. They were true department stores, and they benefitted from the excellent railroad connections to Wilmington, Philadelphia and other cities that enabled Outten’s and Mustard and Company to stock their stores with a broad assortment of products. Outten’s drug store sold a wide selection of goods, including tinware, shirts, buttons, books, jewelry, and a host of other items.

Just as Macy’s has its Thanksgiving Day parade to attract customers, the second floor of Outten’s building contained an auditorium for theatrical presentations. Named the “Lyceum,” it was the only theater in Lewes at that time. Outten booked dramatic presentations, minstrel shows, lectures, and special Christmas shows.

In June 1897, magician C. J. Gardner came to the Lyceum; and as part of his magic show, included a demonstration of Thomas Edison’s recently invented movie projector.

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According to the Delaware Pilot, “An interesting and instructive feature will be Edison’s greatest electrical wonder, the Cineograph, which reproduces on a screen life-size and moving figures taken from life. The figures move and act in a most natural manner.” This was the first known showing of a motion picture in the coastal area.

The major demonstration of the competition between Outten’s and Mustard and Company was in the pages of the Delaware Pilot, the Lewes hometown newspaper.

In its ad for pocket books and leather goods, Mustard and Company added for emphasis in all caps that “we are not selling these goods at cost but way BELOW THE PURCHASE PRICE we paid the manufacturer.” The store added, “There are lots to select from now but if you delay your purchase you will have to take what somebody else did not want.”

Outten’s countered by proclaiming “You may get it as cheap elsewhere, but the chances are you won’t.” In December 1898, when Outten’s offered a 15 percent discount on lamps, it continued the same attitude in its advertising: “Those who are in need of a lamp and fail to get one from our present stock, had just as well take fifteen cents of every dollar which they propose spending for a lamp and throw it into the street.”

The competition between Mustard and Company and Outten’s department stores in Lewes was not a scale that matched the rivalry between Macy’s and Gimbel's in New York.

The advertisements in the Delaware Pilot for the two Lewes stores were not as slick or catchy as those for the big city department store; but who could resist Outten’s pronouncement, “You may get it as cheap elsewhere, but the chances are you won’t.”

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Principal sources

Betty Grunder, “Outten’s Lyceum,” Journal of the Lewes Historical Society, Vol. II, November 1999, pp. 45-49.

Delaware Pilot, Jan. 16, 1897; Feb. 13, 1897; June 19, 1897, Dec. 3, 1898.

Paula Schwartz Holloway, “Robert West Mustard: An American Merchant in Shanghai, 1865-1900,” Delaware History, Vol, 22 #2, 1986,  pp. 62-97.

This article originally appeared on Salisbury Daily Times: The epic Lewes department store battle that made customers the winners