The J. C. Penney Store in Anchorage, Alaska, is a department store and part of the United States retail chain J. C. Penney. The store was established in 1962 on Fifth Avenue in downtown Anchorage, making J. C. Penney one of the first national retailers to establish a presence in the state following Alaska's admission to the union as the 49th state in 1959. The store has been housed in two buildings on the same Fifth Avenue site since it opened.
The store's original site, known locally as The Penney Building, was effectively destroyed during the 1964 Alaska earthquake. It was one of the larger buildings in Anchorage to fall due to the shaking, rather than to ensuing landslides. A larger store was rebuilt on the same location, which later included a parking garage on an adjacent block connected by a skywalk. These structures and the later Northern Commercial Company department store (which was purchased by Nordstrom several years after it was built), formed the foundation of the 5th Avenue Mall. The building currently features a Whaling Wall mural along its west wall.
History
J. C. Penney built its first Alaska store in 1962, located on the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and D Street in downtown Anchorage. The company acquired the site by executing a 55-year lease with Hoyt Motors, one of Anchorage's earliest automobile dealerships.[1]