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My thanks to Grant McCormick for this wonderful photo of his grandfather, Homer McCormick, taken out front of Bullocks Wilshire department store in 1929. The store opened on September 26, 1929 and Homer got the job as head of the delivery department, a position he held until 1959. The store opened a month before the stock market crashed so his family were lucky that Homer had a steady job throughout the Great Depression. Homer is the shorter of the two men standing in front of the new Bullocks Wilshire delivery vans. Those vans are Studebakers and at the the time it was quite common to have the driver sit in an open-air compartment like that. In the sunny California climate that was probably fine most of the time, but what about when it rained like the dickens? Apparently most vehicles like this were equipped with retractable (if solid) or roll-back (if fabric) tops to cover the driver’s compartment in inclement weather.

Back in the days before gift cards, Bullocks Wilshire had gift coins. I assume the hole punched through them meant that the gift coin had been used.

Homer McCormick’s Bullock’s address book (shown here with a quarter for size comparison: