A.W. Lucas was a local department store for 80 years. Picture courtesy Bismarck Library Missouri River Room.
A.W. Lucas & Company, often shortened to A.W. Lucas or simply Lucas’s, was a local department store in Bismarck for over eighty years. A.W. Lucas was established in 1899 as the result of a partnership between Arthur Lucas and William O’Hara. It served as the first real competition to long-time local department store Webb Brothers, who actually welcomed the competition by providing financial support to Lucas and O’Hara’s new business venture.
Lucas assumed full ownership of the store when O’Hara left the business in June 1902. By 1924, the store had outgrown its original location and relocated into an adjacent building. Over the years, A.W. Lucas continued to expand, maintaining its downtown presence until establishing itself as an original anchor store for Gateway Mall in 1979 before forever closing. Herbergers replaced the Gateway Mall location, which also vacated the space in 1994. The original building that housed A.W. Lucas has housed Woodmansee’s Office Supply Store since the mid-1920s, shortly after Lucas’s relocation.
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