![]() Fourth and Market store, c. 1916 | |
Formerly | J. Bacon & Sons |
---|---|
Company type | Department store |
Industry | Retail |
Founded | 1845Louisville, Kentucky | in
Founder | Jeremiah Bacon |
Defunct | 1998 |
Fate | acquired by Dillards |
Headquarters | Louisville, Kentucky, U.S. |
Number of locations | 5 (1998) [1] |
Area served | Louisville, Kentucky, Southern Indiana, Owensboro, Kentucky |
Parent | Mercantile Stores |
Bacon's was a chain of department stores based in Louisville, Kentucky, United States.
Jeremiah Bacon opened a store called Bacon's Dry Goods in 1845 on Market Street near Hancock Street. In 1876 he moved into a structure four times larger than the original. In 1901, Bacon's opened a location on Fourth and Market streets that became its flagship store. The new 115,000-square-foot (10,700 m2) building had entrances on each street and featured a distinctive spiraling atrium. [2] The store remained open until September 6, 1972, when it closed to make way for the Kentucky International Convention Center. [3] [4]
In 1903, Bacon's sons sold the store to the large New York City-based dry goods conglomerate H.B. Claflin & Company, the owner of Stewart Dry Goods. The store was acquired by Ohio-based Mercantile Stores [2] when Claflin went bankrupt in 1914. [5] Bacon's opened a suburban location in St. Matthews in 1953; [6] locations followed in Shively in 1956 [7] and Bashford Manor Mall in 1972. [8] The chain added a location in Owensboro, Kentucky, in 1977. [9]
In 1982, Bacon's revived its Downtown Louisville presence with a store in the Louisville Galleria (later renamed Fourth Street Live!). The downtown store closed in 2003. In 1988, it opened a location in Mall St. Matthews. [9]
Bacon's marketed itself as Kentucky's oldest department store, and often held elaborate sales and celebrations for its anniversaries. Bacon's also held "Midnight Madness" sales that were popular with shoppers. In the 1990s, Bacon's faced increasing competition from national chains, including Dillard's, which would often open up locations in the same shopping centers as Bacon's.
Some Louisville-based department store chain competitors included Stewart Dry Goods, Ben Snyders, and Kaufman-Straus.
Mercantile Stores was acquired by Dillard's in 1998 [10] and the Bacon's name was retired. [1] [2]
Bacon's always had a presence in Indiana prior to the opening of its St. Matthews store in 1953. One of the earliest location in Indiana was on Spring Street in downtown Jeffersonville. [11] By the mid-1950s, this store was determined to be too small and was replaced by a much larger store in the newly built Youngstown shopping center in 1956. [12] The store in the Youngstown Shopping Center in Jeffersonville moved in 1990 to River Falls Mall. [13]
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Mercantile Stores Company Inc. until 1998, was a traditional department store retailer operating 102 fashion apparel stores and 16 home fashion stores in 17 states. The stores were operated under 13 different nameplates and varied in size, with the average store approximating 170,000 sq ft (16,000 m2). Store names included Bacon's, Castner Knott, deLendrecie's, Gayfers, Glass Block, Hennessy's, J. B. White, The Jones Store Company, Joslins, Lion Store, Maison Blanche, McAlpin's, and Root's.
Joslins was a chain of department stores that was based in Denver, Colorado, United States.
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The Stewart Dry Goods Company—alternately known as Stewart Dry Goods, or Stewart's—was a regional department store chain based in Louisville, Kentucky. At its height, the chain consisted of seven store locations in Kentucky and Indiana. The chain in its later years operated as a division of New York–based Associated Dry Goods.
J. B. White was a department store chain in the Southeastern United States founded in Augusta, Georgia in 1874 by James Brice White, an Irish immigrant. In the early 1910s, White sold the store to the H.B. Clafin Company, owner of Lord & Taylor. The store's initial offerings included clothing, furniture, appliances and community programs.
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Bullock's was a chain of full-line department stores from 1907 through 1995, headquartered in Los Angeles, growing to operate across California, Arizona and Nevada. Bullock's also operated as many as seven more upscale Bullocks Wilshire specialty department stores across Southern California. Many former Bullock's locations continue to operate today as Macy's.
River Falls Mall is a shopping center in Clarksville, Indiana, on Lewis and Clark Parkway. From its opening in 1990 until 2006, the center was an enclosed mall, with 762,000 square feet (70,800 m2) of gross leasable area. It originally comprised multiple entertainment venues and retail. After losing the majority of its tenants, River Falls Mall was redeveloped in 2006 as a power center, comprising Dick's Sporting Goods, Old Time Pottery, Jo-Ann Fabrics, and Bass Pro Shops.
May Company California was an American chain of department stores operating in Southern California and Nevada, with headquarters at its flagship Downtown Los Angeles store until 1983 when it moved them to North Hollywood. It was a subsidiary of May Department Stores and merged with May's other Southern California subsidiary, J. W. Robinson's, in 1993 to form Robinsons-May.
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Jefferson Mall is an enclosed shopping mall in Louisville, Kentucky, the largest city in Kentucky. The mall is located near the intersection of Interstate 65 and Outer Loop in southern Louisville. Jefferson Mall is the only major mall in southern Jefferson County, and the only of Louisville's six regional shopping centers serving the south and west county; the others are located in the east county.
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To encourage impulse buying, J. Bacon & Son, St. Matthews has emphasis the rear entrance of the store... This is the first suburban unit in Kentucky. It was opened less than 11 months after ground was broken for it. On a lot totalling 72,000 square feet, selling space of the actual two floors of the store is 34,000 square feet.
Bacon's Department Store has opened its 54,000-square-foot unit in Bacon's Shively shopping center along with 15 other stores. The new store gives Bacon's four outlets in the Louisville area. One is in downtown at Fourth and Market, another is in suburban St. Matthews, and another in Youngstown shopping center in Jeffersonville.
This year, three of the biggest stores on Spring Street, Jeffersonville's main business street, have announced they will be in one of the two shopping centers. One of them is Louisville's J. Bacon & Sons department store, which will close their Spring Street branch. Construction of a new Bacon's branch in the Youngstown center is progressing.
J. Bacon & Sons department store has opened its 32,000-square-foot suburban shopping center branch in Jeffersonville, Ind., across the river from Louisville. [T]he new store in the Youngstown Shopping Center is almost five times the size of the store it replaces in downtown Jeffersonville.