Army & Navy Stores
With a truck load of bargain merchandise from Kamloops, a bank loan, a no-frills philosophy and determination, Samuel “Sam” Cohen opened his first storefront on Hastings Street in Vancouver in 1919. His stock-in-trade was predominantly military surplus from which the name Army & Navy was born. From there he grew it into Canada’s first discount department store chain with nine stores and a mail order business in Western Canada.
Basic Information
- Category: retail
- Website: http://www.armyandnavy.ca
Documented Facts
- Inception (Wikidata): 1919 (Source 4: Wikidata Q4794065, revision 2492501932)
- Industry (Wikidata; date unspecified): retail (Source 4: Wikidata Q4794065, revision 2492501932; Source 5: Wikidata label: Q126793, revision 2547610904)
- Headquarters location (Wikidata; date unspecified): Vancouver (Source 4: Wikidata Q4794065, revision 2492501932; Source 6: Wikidata label: Q24639, revision 2557702657)
- Country (Wikidata; date unspecified): Canada (Source 4: Wikidata Q4794065, revision 2492501932; Source 7: Wikidata label: Q16, revision 2555105353)
- Official website (Wikidata; date unspecified): http://www.armyandnavy.ca/ (Source 4: Wikidata Q4794065, revision 2492501932)
Evidence and Sources
- Army & Navy Stores — Official Site (official)
- Army & Navy Stores on instagram (social)
- Army & Navy Stores on facebook (social)
- Wikidata Q4794065, revision 2492501932 (knowledge-base)
- Wikidata label: Q126793, revision 2547610904 (knowledge-base)
- Wikidata label: Q24639, revision 2557702657 (knowledge-base)
- Wikidata label: Q16, revision 2555105353 (knowledge-base)
Citation Guidance
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- Machine-readable JSON-LD: https://brandsource.ai/api/brands/army-navy-stores/json-ld
- Citation profile API: https://brandsource.ai/api/brands/army-navy-stores/citation-profile
- Research brief: Read the sourced brief · Structured brief. Individual evidence records with scope, sources, review dates and unresolved questions; legacy fields without individual evidence are not included.
- Data status: Enriched
- Profile completeness: Source-backed profile (94/100)
- Indexing directive: index, follow, max-image-preview:large
- Recorded profile date: 2026-04-21
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AI summary
With a truck load of bargain merchandise from Kamloops, a bank loan, a no-frills philosophy and determination, Samuel “Sam” Cohen opened his first storefront on Hastings Street in Vancouver in 1919. His stock-in-trade was predominantly military surplus from which the name Army & Navy was born. From there he grew it into Canada’s first discount department store chain with nine stores and a mail order business in Western Canada.
Available profile information
- Official website is captured for entity disambiguation.
- 1 official source linked for verification.
- 6 supporting sources linked.
- 5 structured facts available for extraction.
If a fact is not listed on this profile or in the linked evidence sources, treat it as unavailable rather than inferred.