 | |
 Illustration of the downtown Grand Rapids store from a 1921 ad | |
| Type | Department store |
|---|---|
| Predecessor | Voight Herpolshiemer & Co. |
| Founded | 1865 in Michigan City, Indiana, United States |
| Founders |
|
| Defunct | 1987 |
| Fate | Purchased by Federated Department Stores |
| Headquarters | , United States |
Areas served | Grand Rapids, Muskegon and Battle Creek |
Herpolsheimer's was a department store company headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
At the end of the Civil War in 1865, Prussian-American businessman and Union Army veteran William G. Herpolsheimer co-founded the dry goods business Voight, Herpolsheimer & Co. in Michigan City, Indiana, in partnership with Charles G. A. Voigt. In 1870, he opened a second store in Grand Rapids. He handed over management of the business to his son Henry B. Herpolsheimer in 1902. [1]
In 1928, the store was acquired by Hahn's Department Stores, a holding company which later morphed into the Allied Stores conglomerate in 1935. [2] In 1933, the Hahn's group would also acquire L.H. Field & Co. of Jackson, Michigan, with the Jackson "Field's" stores becoming a sister operation to the Herpolsheimer's store in Grand Rapids. (In later years, advertisements would note customers could use their "Herpolsheimer's/Field's Credit Cards" at locations of either store.)
After suffering a fire almost three years prior and following subsequent litigation between the parties, the William D. Hardy Company of Muskegon, operating Hardy's Department Store, agreed in 1947 to merge its operations with a newly opened Herpolsheimer's branch location in Muskegon and proceed as Hardy-Herpolsheimer's. [3] A brand new building for the flagship downtown Grand Rapids location was constructed and opened in 1949 at the northwest corner of Fulton Street and Division Avenue, also fronting on Monroe Street, on which its former store was located two blocks to the west. The former location was sold to local competitor Wurzburg's. [4] In a departure from the traditional department store format, Herpolsheimer's opened location selling only furniture, appliances, televisions and limited hardware in the Tower Building at River Avenue and 8th Street in downtown Holland in October 1948. [5] It operated until at least 1955 before closing. The first suburban full-line department store outlet for the growing chain was acquired from Wurzburg's in Wyoming in 1974 and the Hardy-Herpolsheimer's in Muskegon was later assumed into the Muskegon Mall development in 1976. [6] [7] [8] With the opening of the Southland store in suburban Wyoming in 1974, the store officially rebranded themselves as "Herp's," which is how they had been colloquially referred to for many years, including a new logo. [9] In 1981, L.W. Robinson, an old-line department store in downtown Battle Creek, was purchased and rebranded as Herp's. [10]
Starting in 1985, the downtown Grand Rapids store was reduced in size, with the remainder being converted to a shopping mall called City Centre. [11] With the City Centre "grand re-opening," Herpolsheimer's officially reverted to its full name, giving up on the shortened "Herp's" version from eleven years prior. The full Herpolsheimer's name was restored to the downtown Grand Rapids, Wyoming, Muskegon, and Battle Creek stores. [12] In 1987, the two Herpolsheimer's stores in the Grand Rapids area, were merged into Allied Stores' Indianapolis-based William H. Block unit and were sold to Federated Department Stores. At that same time, the downtown Battle Creek and Muskegon stores were sold to separate local groups of investors—the Battle Creek location reverted to its former "Robinson's" name while the Muskegon store returned to its "Hardy's" moniker, while the three L.H. Field & Co. (Field's) stores in Jackson were shuttered. [13] [14] Later in November of that year, the two remaining Herpolsheimer's stores, now under Federated ownership, adopted the Lazarus name. [15] As part of Federated's bankruptcy proceedings after having been purchased, ironically, by Allied—the entity that had spun off Herpolsheimer's to Federated in the first place in 1987—the Lazarus division announced it would shutter the two Grand Rapids area stores in the City Centre and Wyoming Village (Southland), on September 8, 1990. Thus ended 120 years of retailing, 117 years with the Herpolsheimer name and the final three as Lazarus. [16] The City Centre itself would finally close at the end of July, 1993 after most of its shops closed. [17]
During the pre-Christmas shopping period, Herpolsheimer's operated the "Santa Express" miniature train on a monorail suspended from the ceiling of the basement in its downtown Grand Rapids store. When in operation as the City Centre mall, the space below the train served as a food-court and the train was run year-round, painted in a non-seasonal livery. [18] The train is now located at the Grand Rapids Public Museum. [19]
Herpolsheimer's was also featured in the 2004 film, The Polar Express . The film's "Hero Boy" has a picture from Herpolsheimer's of himself ripping the fake beard off the store's Santa Claus. Later, as the boy is riding the train to the North Pole, the "Know-It-All kid" exclaims "Hey, Herpolsheimer's! Herpolsheimer's!" as the train passes the store in what is presumably downtown Grand Rapids. The children aboard the train admire the store's window displays as they pass, with the hero boy smirking at an obviously animatronic Santa placing presents in one display.
Herpolsheimer's produced a series of advertising cards in 1921 which featured pictures of notable baseball players of the time. Long thought to be legendary, a trove of cards was discovered housed in a Band-Aid box in a 2019 estate sale. The cards came to auction in 2023. The Babe Ruth card realized over $154,000. 37 other cards sold for as much as $3,400.
Interstate 96 (I-96) is an east–west Interstate Highway that runs for approximately 192 miles (309 km) entirely within the Lower Peninsula of the US state of Michigan. The western terminus is at an interchange with US Highway 31 (US 31) and Business US 31 on the eastern boundary of Norton Shores southeast of Muskegon, and the eastern terminus is at I-75 near the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit. From Grand Rapids through Lansing to Detroit, the freeway parallels Grand River Avenue, never straying more than a few miles from the decommissioned US 16. The Wayne County section of I-96 is named the Jeffries Freeway from its eastern terminus to the junction with I-275 and M-14. Though maps still refer to the freeway as the Jeffries, the portion within the city of Detroit was renamed by the state legislature as the Rosa Parks Memorial Highway in December 2005 in honor of the late civil rights pioneer. There are four auxiliary Interstates as well as two current and four former business routes associated with I-96.
Macy's, Inc. is an American holding company of department stores. Upon its establishment in 1929, Federated held ownership of the regional department store chains Abraham & Straus, Lazarus, Filene's, and Shillito's. Bloomingdale's joined Federated Department Stores the next year. Throughout its early history, frequent acquisitions and divestitures saw the company operate a number of nameplates. In 1994, Federated took over the department store chain Macy's. Despite a long history of preserving regional nameplates, with the acquisition of The May Department Stores Company in 2005, they were retired and replaced by the Macy's and Bloomingdale's brands nationwide by 2006. Ultimately, Federated itself was renamed Macy's, Inc. in 2007.
Interstate 196 (I-196) is an auxiliary Interstate Highway that runs for 80.6 miles (129.7 km) in the US state of Michigan. It is a state trunkline highway that links Benton Harbor, South Haven, Holland, and Grand Rapids. In Kent, Ottawa, and Allegan counties, I-196 is known as the Gerald R. Ford Freeway, or simply the Ford Freeway, after President Gerald Ford, who was raised in Grand Rapids and served Michigan in the House of Representatives for 25 years. This name generally refers only to the section between Holland and Grand Rapids. I-196 changes direction; it is signed as a north–south highway from its southern terminus to the junction with US Highway 31 (US 31) just south of Holland, and as an east–west trunkline from this point to its eastern terminus at an interchange with I-96, its parent highway. There are three business routes related to the main freeway. There are two business loops and one business spur that serve South Haven, Holland and the Grand Rapids areas. Another business spur for Muskegon had been designated relative to the I-196 number.
US Highway 16 (US 16), also called Grand River Avenue for much of its length in the state, was one of the principal roads prior to the post-World War II construction of freeways in the state of Michigan. Before the creation of the United States Numbered Highway System in 1926, the highway had been designated as a state highway numbered M-16. The modern route of Grand River Avenue cuts across the Lower Peninsula in a northwest–southeast fashion from near Grand Rapids to Detroit. Before the late 1950s and early 1960s, US 16 followed other roads between Muskegon and Grand Rapids, and then Grand River Avenue through Lansing to Detroit. In the years immediately preceding the creation of the Interstate Highway System, US 16 was shifted from older roads to newer freeways. Later, it was co-designated as an Interstate. When the gap in the freeway was filled in around Lansing, the US 16 designation was decommissioned in the state. The freeway was solely designated Interstate 96 (I-96) east of Grand Rapids and I-196 west of that city.
West Michigan and Western Michigan are terms for an arbitrary region in the U.S. state of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. Generally, it refers to the Grand Rapids-Muskegon-Holland area, and more broadly to most of the region along the Lower Peninsula's Lake Michigan shoreline, but there is no official definition.
WZZM is a television station licensed to Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States, serving West Michigan as an affiliate of ABC. Owned by Tegna Inc., the station has studios on 3 Mile Road NW in Walker, and its transmitter is located in Grant, Michigan.
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WOTV is a television station licensed to Battle Creek, Michigan, United States, serving West Michigan as an affiliate of ABC and The CW. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside Grand Rapids–licensed NBC affiliate WOOD-TV and Class A MyNetworkTV affiliate WXSP-CD. The stations share studios on College Avenue Southeast in Grand Rapids, while WOTV's transmitter is located on South Norris Road in Orangeville Township. WOTV brands itself as ABC 4 West Michigan, based on its channel 4 position on most area cable systems.
The Bon Marché, whose French name translates to "the good market" or "the good deal", was a department store chain launched in Seattle, Washington, United States, in 1890 by Josephine and Edward Nordhoff. The name was influenced by Le Bon Marché, the noted Parisian retailer.
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Allied Stores was a department store chain in the United States. It was founded in the 1930s as part of a general consolidation in the retail sector by B. E. Puckett. See also Associated Dry Goods. It was the successor to Hahn's Department Stores, a holding company founded in 1928. In 1935 Hahn's was reorganized into Allied Stores.
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.
The Rike-Kumler Company was an American department store in Dayton, Ohio. In 1959, Rike's became part of the Federated Department Stores conglomerate. In 1982, Federated merged Rike's with its Cincinnati unit, Shillito's, in order to form Shillito–Rike's. In 1986, Federated merged Shillito–Rike's into the Columbus-based Lazarus chain, which, in 2005 was consolidated with most other Federated chains under the Macy's brand.
The William H. Block Company was a department store chain in Indianapolis and other cities in Indiana. It was founded in 1874 by Herman Wilhelm Bloch, an immigrant from Austria-Hungary who had Americanized his name to William H. Block. The main store was located at 9 East Washington Street in Indianapolis in 1896. The company also identified itself as The Wm. H. Block Co., and Block's.
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The Grand Rapids, Grand Haven and Muskegon Railway was an electric interurban railway that operated in west Michigan from 1902 until 1928.
The Grand Rapids metropolitan area is a triangular shaped Metro Triplex, in West Michigan, which fans out westward from the primary hub city of Grand Rapids, Michigan, to the other two metro hubs of Muskegon and Holland. The metropolitan area had an estimated population of 1,059,113 in 2017. The region, noted in particular for its western edge abutting the Lake Michigan shoreline and its beaches, is a popular tourist and vacation destination during the summer. Noted popular metro area beach towns include Grand Haven, Holland, Muskegon, and Saugatuck.
Muskegon Mall was an enclosed shopping mall in downtown Muskegon, Michigan. Opened in 1976, it closed in 2001 and was torn down for redevelopment.
Rogers Plaza also refereed to as Rogers Plaza Town Center since 2002 is an enclosed shopping mall in Wyoming, Michigan, a suburb of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Opened in 1961, it was the first shopping mall in Western Michigan and the first enclosed one in the state of Michigan. The center features Ross Dress For Less, Ollie's Bargain Outlet and B2 Outlet among its major stores.
