 | |
| Industry | Retail |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1889 |
| Founder | Gustavus Hindman Miller Frank Miller |
| Defunct | 1992 |
| Fate | Sold to Hess's; later converted to Dillard's |
| Headquarters | Chattanooga & Knoxville, Tennessee |
| Products | Clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, and housewares. |
Miller's Department Store was a chain of department stores based in East Tennessee.
Miller's traced its history to the New York Racket Store, established in 1889 at 510 Market Street in Chattanooga by brothers Gus and Frank Miller. After a fire destroyed the Richardson Building in 1897, the brothers built a new store at Seventh and Market Streets that was known as Miller Brothers Department Store. [1] Miller Brothers Department Store of Chattanooga remained a privately held company until 1973. A son of Gus Miller later become one of the founders of Miller, Inc. in Knoxville. [2]
Miller's Department Store was formed August 1, 1973, from the consolidation by retail conglomerate Garfinckel, Brooks Brothers, Miller & Rhoads, Inc. of the two related Tennessee-based department stores: Miller Brothers of Chattanooga and Miller, Inc., of Knoxville. [3]
At formation the combined chain had 11 stores and two specialty shops in East Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, and North Carolina.
In 1981, with the acquisition of its parent conglomerate, Miller's became a part of Allied Stores. [4] In 1986, the chain was acquired in a hostile takeover by Hess's; then converted to Dillard's in 1992.
Miller Brothers Department Store | |
   | |
| Location | 629 Market St., Chattanooga, Tennessee |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 35°2′56″N85°18′34″W / 35.04889°N 85.30944°W |
| Area | 0.8 acres (0.32 ha) |
| Built | 1898 |
| Architect | Hunt, Reuben H. |
| NRHP reference No. | 87001115 [5] |
| Added to NRHP | September 17, 1987 |
The Miller Brothers of Chattanooga flagship store, at 629 Market Street (corner of Seventh St.) in Chattanooga, Tennessee, was known for having Chattanooga's only "subway," which consisted of an underground shopping area that tunneled beneath Broad Street to their home store at the corner of Seventh and Broad with a connecting parking garage. The four-story store boasted two snackbars and a Tea Room as well as many amenities that are not to be found in any current retail establishment. On September 17, 1987, it was listed in the National Register of Historic Places. [6]
The downtown Chattanooga store was closed in 1986 and sold to BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, which used it for offices. In 2011 the building was sold to the engineering firm Mesa Associates. [7]
From an advertisement in the 1902 University of Tennessee school annual yearbook, Miller's Department Store was operating contemporaneously at the location of "315, 317, and 319 Gay Street" in Knoxville. The Miller, Inc. store in downtown Knoxville, erected in 1905, was a fixture of the shopping culture in the area, and a foundation of the downtown business district. The location at 445 Gay Street is still known as the Miller's Building. The building was constructed in the Edwardian style, and designed by Knoxville-based architect, R. F. Graf. [8] A 1911 addition to the north was in the same style as the original building, but an expansion in 1935 was in the Art Deco style. In 1998, the building was restored, including the recreation of original details and return of the buildings to the earliest appearance of each of the three component sections. [9] [10] The building is currently home to the Knoxville Utilities Board.
Miller's later moved to a building a few blocks west at 600 Henley Street, constructed about 1954, which had housed a Rich's store and eventually became a Hess's store. This mid-century modern building received a design award from the American Institute of Architects at the time it was built. It features structural glazed tile, polychrome glazed brick, undulating concrete canopies, and corner towers enclosed in glass. [11] Like the Gay Street store it also had a tunnel which connected the store to its multi-level parking structure across Henley Street. The Henley Street building is currently used by the University of Tennessee for a conference center. While the parking structure was modified for the 1982 World's Fair and eventually leveled for the construction of the new Knoxville Convention Center, the tunnel still exists and is used for storage and access to the conference center's garbage disposal area. Former Knoxville councilman Don Ferguson has recently[ when? ] petitioned the university to allow the public to use the tunnel again.
Like many department stores of the era, Miller's incorporated a restaurant, snack bar, and bakery counter. Miller's coconut cakes were very popular with patrons, and the recipe is still a highly sought-after item. [12]
Author James Agee described Miller's as a "profoundly matronly store" in his 1957 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, A Death in the Family . [13] Cormac McCarthy mentions the store in his 1979 novel, Suttree , describing it as a "perfumed and airconditioned sanctuary." [14]
In addition to the Chattanooga flagship store, Miller's Chattanooga area locations included Eastgate Mall, Bradley Square Mall in Cleveland (relocated from Village Mall), and Northgate Mall in Hixson, where Miller Bros. was one of the two anchors when the mall opened in 1972. The Northgate store is now a Belk. [15]
Miller Inc. established one of the first stores in Oak Ridge during the Manhattan Project. The original Miller's store in Oak Ridge was established in 1944 on Broadway. [16] The store later relocated to the Downtown Shopping Center, which was renovated into Oak Ridge Mall between 1989 and 1991. Other Knoxville area branch locations included East Towne Mall, West Town Mall, and the Foothills Mall in Maryville.
Tri-Cities locations included Fort Henry Mall in Kingsport, The Mall at Johnson City in Johnson City, and Bristol Mall in Bristol, Virginia. Prior to moving to the Fort Henry Mall, the Kingsport store was located at 300 Broad Street. The downtown store was purchased from J. Fred Johnson Company and the two-story building contained the first escalator in Kingsport.
Miller's had one Georgia location in Rome, which began as a multi-level downtown store and then moved to Rome's Riverbend Mall in 1975.
Dillard's, Inc. is an American department store chain with approximately 267 stores in 29 states and headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas. Currently, the largest number of stores are located in Texas with 57 and Florida with 42. The company also has stores in 27 more states; however, it is absent from the Northeast, most of the Upper Midwest, and most of the West Coast, aside from three stores in California.
Foley's was a regional chain of department stores owned by Federated Department Stores, later owned by May Department Stores (1988–2005) and headquartered in Downtown Houston, Texas. On August 30, 2005, the division was dissolved and operation of the stores was assumed by Federated's Macy's West and Macy's South divisions. Foley's operated stores in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana. On September 9, 2006 Foley's and all the regional May Co. stores names were phased out and rebranded as Macy's.
Rich's was a department store retail chain, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, which operated in the southern U.S. from 1867 until March 6, 2005 when the nameplate was eliminated and replaced by Macy's. Many of the former Rich's stores today form the core of Macy's Central, an Atlanta-based division of Macy's, Inc., which formerly operated as Federated Department Stores, Inc.
Proffitt's was a department store chain based in Alcoa, Tennessee. The chain was founded in 1919 by David W. Proffitt and James Ellis. In 2006, the Proffitt's and McRae's stores were converted into Belk after Belk had acquired the two chains in July 2005 from Saks, Inc. At the time of their demise they operated 47 Proffitts & McRae's stores.
The Jones Store Company was an American chain of department stores located in the Kansas City area formerly operated by Mercantile Stores Company and the St. Louis, Missouri-based May Co.
Hess's, originally known as Hess Brothers, was a department store chain based in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The company was founded a single store in 1897, and grew to nearly 80 stores by its commercial peak in the late 1980s. The chains stores were closed or sold off in a series of deals in the early to mid-1990s.
Goldsmith's was a department store founded in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1870 by German immigrant brothers Jacob and Isaac Goldsmith. It grew into a chain largely located in the Memphis metropolitan area, until 2005, when the nameplate was eliminated and replaced by Macy's. Goldsmith's stores were subsequently folded into Federated's Macy's Central division, reorganized into Macy's South, and today into a differently configured Macy's Central, the current division encompassing the stores.
Northgate Mall, also called Northgate, is an enclosed shopping mall in the Chattanooga, Tennessee suburb of Hixson. Opened on March 15, 1972, it was the second mall built in Chattanooga. Anchor stores are Belk, with two vacant anchors that were formerly Sears and JCPenney.
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.
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.
Miller & Rhoads was a Virginia-based department store chain. Throughout its 105-year lifespan, the store played an active role in the Richmond, Virginia community, along with its friendly cross-street rival Thalhimers. The Richmond flagship location was known for its "SantaLand" upstairs attraction, which has since become an attraction at the Children’s Museum of Richmond. Following a series of ownership changes starting in 1967, Campeau Corporation purchased Miller & Rhoads in 1987 and later sold it to Philadelphia developer Kevin Donohoe and store management before closing in 1990.
Garfinckel's was a prominent department store chain based in Washington, D.C. that catered to a clientele of wealthy consumers. Its flagship store at 14th and F in the city's F Street shopping district is listed on the National Register. It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June 1990 and ceased operations that year.
McCurdy's was a Rochester, New York–based department store. Founded in 1901, the company was acquired by May Department Stores in 1994, but as a result of an antitrust settlement due to both McCurdy's and May's Kaufmann's stores being the predominant anchors in the area shopping malls, its stores were divested to The Bon-Ton Department store chain.
Eastgate Towne Center, formerly known as Eastgate Mall is an enclosed, mixed-use facility in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
The H. & S. Pogue Company was a Cincinnati, Ohio based department store chain founded by two brothers, Henry and Samuel Pogue. They came from County Cavan, Northern Ireland, to Cincinnati and worked in their uncle's dry goods store. They later were able to buy him out and H. & S. Pogue Dry Goods Company was established in 1863 at 111 West Fifth Street. Brothers Thomas, Joseph, and William Pogue would eventually join the enterprise.
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.
Garfinckel, Brooks Brothers, Miller & Rhoads, Inc. was a Washington, D.C.-based national retail conglomerate that existed from 1967 to 1981.
Harzfeld's was a Kansas City, Missouri-based department store chain specializing in women's and children's high-end apparel.
Gay Street is a street in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, that traverses the heart of the city's downtown area. Since its development in the 1790s, Gay Street has served as the city's principal financial and commercial thoroughfare, and has played a primary role in the city's historical and cultural development. The street contains Knoxville's largest office buildings and oldest commercial structures. Several buildings on Gay Street have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Parts of F Street and 7th Street, N.W. and nearby blocks have historically been the heart of the Washington, D.C. Downtown shopping district. In the first half of the 20th century there were numerous upscale large department stores along and near F Street, while 7th Street housed more economical emporia and large retail furniture stores. The F street corridor stretches west from Downtown's Penn Quarter and Gallery Place towards 15th Street, while the 7th Street corridor includes the neighborhoods of Penn Quarter, Chinatown and Mount Vernon Square, and extends up to the border of Shaw.