Editing Saks Fifth Avenue (section)

== Early history ==
{{See also|Timeline of Saks Fifth Avenue branches}}
[[File:Saks Building Indianapolis, 1906, one year after Andrew Saks big renovation.png|thumb|left|Saks & Co. Indianapolis, 1906]]

[[Andrew Saks]] was born to a [[German Jewish]] family, in [[Baltimore]], [[Maryland]]. He worked as a peddler and paper boy before moving to [[Washington, D.C.]], where at the age of only 20, and in the still-chaotic and tough economic times of 1867, two years after the United States prevailed in the [[American Civil War]], he established a men's clothing store<ref name=Gardner>{{cite web|url=http://cyrus.piedmont.edu/users/mgardner/Saks_Paper_6-22-05.html |title=What's in a Name?—A Brief History of Saks Fifth Avenue|first=Mark L. |last=Gardner|access-date=January 27, 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140212133833/http://cyrus.piedmont.edu/users/mgardner/Saks_Paper_6-22-05.html |archive-date=February 12, 2014 }}</ref> with his brother Isadore.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Mauranna G. Lynn Is Engaged To Christopher Andrew Saks |work=[[The New York Times]]|date=February 15, 1976 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1976/02/15/archives/mauranna-g-lynn-is-engaged-to-christopher-andrew-saks.html }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.hbcheritage.ca/history/acquisitions/saks-fifth-avenue-historical-timeline |title=" Saks Fifth Avenue historical timeline", Hudson's Bay Company website |access-date=August 21, 2020 |archive-date=March 23, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200323155626/http://www.hbcheritage.ca/history/acquisitions/saks-fifth-avenue-historical-timeline |url-status=dead }}</ref> A. Saks & Co. occupied a storefront in the Avenue House Hotel building at 517 (300–308) 7th Street, N.W., in what is still [[F Street shopping district|Washington's downtown shopping district]]. Saks offered his goods at one price only, no bargaining, and offered refunds on merchandise returns, neither of which were the more common practice at that place and time.{{Citation needed|date=August 2020}} Saks was also known for its "forceful and interesting, but strictly truthful" newspaper advertising, according to the Washington ''[[Washington Evening Star|Evening Star]]'', including a two-page spread, large for that time, in that newspaper on April 4, 1898. Saks annexed the store next door, and in 1887 started building a large new store on the site of the old Avenue Hotel Building at 7th and Market Space (now [[United States Navy Memorial|United States Navy Memorial Plaza]]).<ref name=estar>{{cite news |title=Now Forty Years Old: Saks Firm to Celebrate Anniversary This Week: History in the Making: House Has Kept Pace with Washington's Growth: From Johnson's Time to Now: Souvenir Booklet Distribution the Feature of Quiet and Dignified Birthday Celebrations |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/57789718/now-forty-years-old-saks-firm-to/ |publisher=Washington Evening Star |date=September 30, 1907 |page=10}}</ref>

By 1896, Saks and Co. had stores in Norfolk and Richmond, Virginia; New York City; and Indianapolis, in addition to Washington, D.C., where, Saks called itself "Washington's Wonderful Store".<ref>{{cite news |title=Ad for Saks & Company |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/57757965/saks-6-stores-1897/ |work=Washington Times |date=March 28, 1897 |page=6}}</ref>