In 1889, architect and builder A.W. Pattiani designed this Victorian in Alameda, California for Irving W. Davis, proprietor of the Golden Rule Bazaar in San Francisco.

The department store opened under that name in 1872, but was renamed The Emporium in 1896 after a merger with that namesake.

The 1906 earthquake took the store’s inventory through fire, but the building itself survived. By 1908, it reopened on Market Street with its flagship store.

The company purchased the H.C. Capwell Company of Oakland in 1927 taking the name Emporium Capwell Company and began expanding to several bay area cities. By 1980 Emporium dropped the name Capwell from its company name and was eventually acquired by Federated Department Stores in 1995. In 2006 the former flagship store on Market Street reopened as the Westfield San Francisco Center.

— All information on the store from the Online Archive of California.