Remembering Famous-Barr
Famous-Barr was a St. Louis-based department store, born in 1911 from the union of two St. Louis stores - the Famous Clothing Company and the William Barr Dry Goods Co., by the pioneers of the May Department Stores Company.
William Barr was part of a group that opened a store at 3rd & Market in 1849, and he opened his own store at 4th & Vine in 1870, and later relocated to 6th & Olive. Barr’s was the largest department store in St. Louis when the May Company bought it in 1911.
The Famous Clothing Store was established on Franklin Avenue in 1873, and in 1880 moved to Broadway and Delmar. Destroyed by fire in 1891, the following year Famous completed a new five-story store at the same location, designed by architects Lee, Annan, Miller, Hatch. The grand opening was held just prior to its acquistion by the May Company. In 1907 Famous moved to 6th and Washington, doubling its space.
In 1913, Famous-Barr took occupancy of the lower floors of the Railway Exchange Building, then the country's largest building, and maintained its flagship there until its rebranding as Macy's in 2006.
Notable branch stores included Clayton, which opened in 1948, and Southtown, in South St. Louis, which opened in 1951. The Clayton branch closed in 1991, concurrent with the opening of the Famous-Barr branch in the Richmond Height's St. Louis Galleria. The former branch today operates as Washington Univerity library space and a few upscale retail stores. The Southtown branch was closed in 1992 and was demolished in 1994.
Several 1960s suburban branches were designed with a distinctive dome - it looked as if a spaceship had landed upon their roofs. This Famous-Barr architectural detail was built at Northwest Plaza, Fairview Heights and West County (store now demolished) centers.
Famous-Barr was May's center of operations for the Midwest, as it operated 46 stores at its height, under the Famous-Barr, L. S. Ayres and Jones Stores nameplates. May Company had acquired L. S. Ayres as part of the ADG acquisition in 1986, and had run it independently until the consolidation of operations under St. Louis' Famous-Barr division. The Ayres stores retained their nameplates, but the Indianapolis offices were closed. The LSA president, Tony Torcasio, reared at May's Kaufmann's division, was named president of the newly-merged company.
When May acquired the Kansas City-based Mercantile stores of the Jones Store Company through acquisition from Dillard's in 1998, they too retained their identity, but control was centered in the St. Louis offices. Famous-Barr had a short-lived venture in the Des Moines market in the early 2000s, but quickly exited the market.
St. Louis remained the headquarters for Macy's Midwest, from the time of the Macy/May merger in 2006, through its consolidation into the Atlanta division in 2008.
Remembering G. Fox
G. Fox was Connecticut's department store. The first G. Fox store was a single-room storefront opened in Hartford in 1847 by Gerson Fox (nee Gershon Fuchs). Gerson's son, Moses, joined the business in 1863, and took over the store in 1880, upon Gerson's death. The early Fox store was famous for home delivery - by wheelbarrow. The store had grown to five floors when it burned to the ground in January 1917. Moses Fox, 66 at the time, announced that work would begin immediately on an 11-story replacement structure.
All of Fox's records were lost during the 1917 fire. In a legendary tale of retail, and an ultimate testimony of customer loyalty, most of Fox's charge account customers paid their Christmas bills based upon their recollection of amounts due. These receipts funded the new store, which opened about one year after the fire.
Moses' daughter, Beatrice Fox Auerbach, became the matriarch of G. Fox. (Fact: Auerbach's husband was from the Salt Lake City department store Auerbach family). She helped Moses run the store, until Moses' death in 1938, when she assumed the role of president. Beatrice was the first woman president of an American retail company. She retained her position until 1967.
Some statistics on the G. Fox store from 1965: 45 experienced operators in the hair salon; 6 registered nurses to attend to sick customers, sick employees, new and expectant mothers and corset shoppers; 15 registered pharmacists filling 3,000 prescriptions per week; 147 delivery vans; 2,300 full-time and 1,200 part-time employees - all in a single downtown store!
May Department Stores acquired G. Fox in 1965, in a stock exchange valued at $41 million. At the time of May's purchase, Fox had no branches. Under May ownership, G. Fox branches were opened quickly - in Waterbury, Trumbull,, Enfield, Meriden, Warwick, Rhode Island, and eventually the largest store in the chain at Westfarms Mall in Farmington.
The Fox name disappeared in 1993, when May Department stores merged the operations of its two New England stores, Fox and Filene's. The operations of the merged division was centered in Filene's Boston HQ, and the G. Fox stores were promptly rebranded as Filene's. The original Fox flagship store on Main Street in downtown Hartford was shuttered shortly thereafter.
The Fox flagship has been renovated, and now goes by the name "960 Main". It is home to street level retail, offices, a college and a nightclub. Much of the original Art Deco decor has been maintained or restored.
Remembering . . .
Famous-Barr and G. Fox are two of the hundreds of stores chronicled in this website. For an index of all of the department stores remembered herein, please view the Stores page. Share your thoughts and memories on the Comments page.