The Emporium was a department store founded in 1896 in San Francisco, California.

Would anyone know if the Emporium would have had a gunsmithing or gunshop before and after WWI?

Kind of a strange question but I'm trying to track someone down and I know he was working there 1941. He built a custom rifle as early as 1916 and was living in the SF area at that time.

He is listed in the census as a cabinet maker.

I remember the Emporium from about 1952 on very well, but don't remember a gun department or gunsmith, so it may have been gone by then. My mother took us kids on a yearly pilgrimage to The City (is there any other? Not if you ask a San Franciscan....) so she could buy schoolmarm work clothes. We had the run of the downtown when she was shopping (child abuse!) and spent much of it in the gunshop/custom shop at Roos Brothers (Roos/Atkins now) where the staff showed us what was hottest at the time and let us handle the merchandise if we asked nicely (more child abuse). Letting an eight year old handle a Colt Trooper or an FN action Weatherby!!! (What an abused childhood I had.....)

Its not a strange question at all Michal. Well into the 60's a friend and I would drive the 150 miles to Chicago to look at guns at VL&A and at the Marshall Fields Department store. When I was a kid back in the 40's in NY, both Macy's and Gimbel's had gun departments.

I remember in an old (circa 1920) magazine where they were sending people who wanted a custom 1903 to VL&A in Chicago.

They list the gunsmith at VL&A as Morgan but might have been Moran.

The man I have an interest in was named Emile Kreeft original from Belgium.

Joel,
Are you the author of the Webley book?
I'm not an aficionado, but I once shot a Fosbery!

Don't remember the Emporium having a gun department, but that was in the fifties.

I do remember going to the "City" as a kid with my Dad and visiting Eddie Bauer's and Ambercrombie & Fitch when they were genuine sporting goods stores, not even close to what they are today.

The only one I remember (I've only been to SF a few times) is the old San Francisco Gun Exchange, a wonderful place.

I remember it also, was on Market St, IIRC. Also in San Jose, the San Jose Gun Exchange @ W. Santa Clara & 4th St.

The San Jose Gun Exchange still exists; can't remember if that is still the location, but I think so. Didn't find it the last time I looked because of a burrito-induced coma that required spousal medevac by auto....some people are addicted to "Mexican black tar," others to Mexican black beans! Both can make you nod off....

Eddie Bauer in Seattle was a wonderful place, gunshop, gunsmith, the Best clothing and The place to outfit for the North Slope!
Warshall's on 1st Ave also..

Michael,
I wish my dad was still around to ask. An Emporium gun dept. is news to me.
An early memory of downtown was the aforementioned A&F store. I recall going downstairs and seeing the african safari outfitting gear and laying eyes on my first "elephant rifle."
My father bought a couple of guns at Sears Roebuck in The City, on Geary St.
1) A Remington rolling block 7mm which I would like to get restored / transmuted into something more buffalo gun like. My dad would have liked that.
2) An Enfield Jungle Carbine. The first gun I shot, ever, when I was 6. Two shots. That was enough for awhile, but it didn't scare me off permanently. It was a couple of years later before I shot a BB gun. I still have the Enfield too. I loaded some light loads this last summer, and my son shot it.
Lou M

I don't remember a gun department within the Emporium, but my first time spending serious time in San Francisco was 1962 when we opened an office there at Montgomery & Bush. A & F still had a very nice gun department on the mezzanine, and Nate Posner's S.F. Gun Exchange was nearing its peak, but Emporium having guns would be news to me.