| Industry | Retail |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1887 |
| Founder | Adolph Bernard Loveman |
| Defunct | 1980 |
| Fate | Liquidation |
| Headquarters | Birmingham, Alabama |
| Products | Clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, housewares |
| Parent | City Stores Company |
Loveman's of Alabama was a Birmingham, Alabama-based chain of department stores with locations across Alabama. It adopted this name to distinguish it from Loveman's department stores operating in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and in Nashville, Tennessee.
The store was founded in 1887, as A.B. Loveman's Dry Goods Emporium at 1915 Second Avenue by Adolph Bernard Loveman. Moses V. Joseph of Selma, Alabama, soon joined the company and it was renamed Loveman & Joseph. In 1889, the company became Loveman, Joseph & Loeb with the addition of Emil Loeb.
Loveman's primary location was built in 1890, at 200 19th Street on the corner of 3rd Avenue North. The store was expanded in 1899. By 1911, Loveman's was known as the largest, most magnificent department store south of the Ohio River. In 1917, an add-on known as the Loveman's annex was built between the main building and the Alabama Theatre.
In 1923, Loveman, Joseph & Loeb, along with B. Lowenstein, Inc., of Memphis, Tennessee, and Maison Blanche Co., of New Orleans, Louisiana, were the first three department stores of the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based City Stores Company syndicate.
The department store was destroyed in a massive fire on March 10, 1934, although the exterior of the annex survived. The store reopened within a few weeks at a temporary location while a new Loveman's building was built on the site of the fire. The new Loveman's building was completed in 1935. There was a clock on corner of the new building, facing the 19th Street/3rd Avenue intersection, which was a popular local landmark. The new department store was one of the first in the nation to be air conditioned, and the first in Alabama to feature an escalator.
Loveman's opened its first suburban branch store in Montgomery's Normandale Shopping Center in 1954. In 1966, a store came inline in Huntsville's The Mall. The first Metro Birmingham branch was dedicated, in 1969, at Bessemer's West Lake Mall. Branch stores followed at Fairfield's Western Hills Mall (1970) and Birmingham's Century Plaza (1976).
City Stores filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July 1979, forcing liquidation of the chain and closing of the flagship downtown store in April 1980. The downtown Loveman's building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 14, 1983. [1] It now houses the McWane Science Center.
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The Alabama Theatre is a movie palace in Birmingham, Alabama. It was built in 1927 by Paramount's Publix Theatre chain as its flagship theater for the southeastern region of the United States. Seating 2,500 people at the time, it was the largest in the Birmingham Theatre district. The district was once home to a myriad of large theaters that featured vaudeville, performing arts, nickelodeons, and large first-run movie palaces. The Alabama is the only district theater still operating today. Built to show silent films, the Alabama still features its original Wurlitzer theater organ. Other than the Alabama, the Lyric Theatre is the only theater still standing in the district.
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Loveman's was a Chattanooga, Tennessee-based chain of department stores with locations throughout East Tennessee and North Georgia. Relatives of the founder of the chain founded Loveman's of Alabama and Loveman's located in Nashville, Tennessee.
Blue Boar Cafeterias was a chain of cafeteria-style restaurants based in Louisville, Kentucky. The first Blue Boar was opened in 1931. Once a major presence in metro Louisville, it is still remembered for its old downtown location on Fourth Avenue near Broadway. During the 1930s, Guion (Guyon) Clement Earle (1870–1940) served as advertising manager. He was the brother-in-law of Frank Kennicott Reilly (1863–1932) owner of the Reilly & Lee publishing firm of Chicago. Mr. Earle was well known to the customers of the Blue Boar Restaurant through the witty jottings he created which appeared on the Blue Boar's menus. A decade earlier, Mr. Earle had served as the Superintendent of Loveman, Joseph & Loeb in Birmingham, Alabama, where he published a literary review entitled "The Bookworm".
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Adam, Meldrum & Anderson Company (AM&A's) was a chain of department stores based in Buffalo, New York. It was an institution to generations of shoppers in the Buffalo area. The company remained family owned until its sale to The Bon-Ton in 1995.
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Rhodes Brothers was a department store located in Tacoma, Washington, originally established in 1892 as a coffee shop in downtown Tacoma by Albert, William, Henry and Charles Rhodes. In 1903, the brothers would shift into the department store business, opening in the newly built Snell Building at Broadway and 11th Street in the heart of Tacoma's retail core. The store achieved great success, and by 1911, three floors were added to the building, eventually bringing it to 170,000 ft² (15793.52m²), including a tea room and a branch of the Tacoma Public Library. By 1920, even more room was needed and several buildings across the alley were purchased and connected to the main store by a sky bridge. Further additions included a discount annex in 1935, a new men's shop in 1937 and a special vault that could hold 5,000 coats. In 1957, the company opened its first suburban location at the Villa Plaza Shopping Center in Lakewood, Washington. Rhodes also operated a department store in University Village in Seattle in the 1960s. At one time there were signs on highways in Washington that said, "All roads lead to Rhodes," giving the number of miles to the Rhodes store in Tacoma.
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H. P. Wasson and Company, aka Wasson's, was an Indianapolis, Indiana, based department store chain founded by Hiram P. Wasson. Its flagship store, the H. P. Wasson & Company Building, was built in 1937 and is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
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