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Despite its short distance, during the last century Pelayo Street was the street with the largest department stores per square meter in Barcelona: El Globo Stores, Old England Stores, German Stores, Capitol Stores, Damians Stores, El Siglo Stores, El Águila Stores .
The old Capitol Stores began as Los Almacenes Alemanes, which opened in 1917 at 38 Pelayo Street. Subsequently, they were placed at number 20. It had jumped on the bandwagon of warehouse-type stores.
Although the stores ended up in the main ground floor of the buildings at numbers 22, 24, 26, they began as a single number importing German glassware. In 1929, with the first expansion of the store, it increased its range of products with kitchen utensils and household items.
In the first ad published in La Vanguardia to demonstrate the potential of the company, the figure of a Hermes stood out and behind it a freight train with a sign that put German products, later a perspective of the city of Berlin.
They said that it was the house with the cheapest prices on the market and they announced that all the products were German, to show that they were of quality compared to what other stores sold.
The business, which was basically oriented to the popular classes with very low prices, grew progressively, expanding its sales area with the occupation of neighboring farms, as well as interior areas, patios and old gardens until it became a large complex of sale of clothing, household items and accessories.
At the beginning of 1936 they acquired some land in the Terra Nostra Urbanization, between the towns of Montcada and Cerdanyola. They intended, apart from an interest-free sale, to deliver a book with 8,000 spaces to paste the coupons, which they would receive on their purchases, corresponding to the 8,000 spans that each lot had.
For this reason, on Thursday, June 11, he published a large announcement in La Vanguardia that said:
On the occasion of the start of the works, an attractive party program with blessing of the land, raising of balloons, fireworks and Japanese fireworks, lunch for the authorities that will attend the act, hoisting the flag of the Urbanization given by (the subscribers of notebooks, etc., whose acts will be enlivened by a renowned ursa “cobla” of sardanas. At the same time, the attendees will be given all the explanations they request about the future development of the Urbanization and the services it will be provided with.
The problems with the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939 and the consequent outbreak of World War II, led to the German Warehouses being renamed Capitol Warehouses in 1940.
Its implantation in the city meant that, in 1949, there was a new extension. Possibly, no person who had not lived at that time could imagine the adventure that it represented at that time to go shopping at Capitol Department Stores.
The extensions were carried out in a crude way, the interior of the acquired flats was demolished and it was adapted as a store and to move from one building to another. Since it was not in line with height, you had to go up or down two or three steps, which would take you to some places where you would find what we would now call sections.
In 1950 they put the novelty of placing small movable counters at each entrance door that were used by charlatans to offer the public that was walking by offers of cheap products that when you bought them, were always accompanied by another gift object.
People called them “fairy talkers”, but they managed to get a large crowd to come and listen to the qualities of the product they offered.
The crisis of the late 70s, the lack of design and quality and the opening, in 1962, of El Corte Inglés, which was only 200 meters away, together with the novelty in the sales style, began to affect the Capitol Stores, which still had the strength to make small renovations and make some product innovations, but the changes did not have the desired effect.
In 1980 they presented the first bankruptcy, but this did not give the desired result and they returned to present a new bankruptcy that only served to certify the final closure in 1982.
