Crowley's

Crowley Milner and Company, generally referred to as Crowley's, was a department store chain founded in Detroit, Michigan in 1909. After several years of financial difficulties, the company ceased operation in 1999 and its assets were sold.

Its flagship store, corporate office and warehouse complex occupied two blocks in downtown Detroit for almost 80 years. The store was a direct competitor of the J. L. Hudson Company and the Ernst Kern Company until Kern's closed in 1959. Crowley's and Hudson's were both noted for their lavish annual Christmas displays. Faced with a decline in retail traffic in downtown Detroit, Crowley's closed its downtown location in July 1977. The firm operated a store in Detroit's New Center area that remained open until the chain's demise in 1999.

On March 11, 1995, the chain acquired Steinbach in the northeast US. When Crowley's ceased operation in 1999, several of its locations were purchased by discount chain Value City. Three in the Detroit area were rebranded Crowley's Value City and remained part of the Value City chain until it also ceased operating in 2008.

In 1909, Joseph J. Crowley, his brothers William and Daniel, and William L. Milner joined to save the Detroit-based store of Pardridge & Blackwell that was struggling financially. Joseph Crowley previously worked as a credit manager for the Detroit wholesale firm of Burnham Stoepel and had great experience reorganizing struggling ventures. He and his brothers opened the Crowley Brothers Wholesale Dry Goods Company in 1902. William Milner was a regular customer of the Crowley Brothers through his W.L. Milner Department Store of Toledo, Ohio.

Pardridge & Blackwell formed in 1901 and was on the edge of insolvency due to poor management and the recession of 1907. The opportunity to assume control of the retailer came when an executive of the Central Savings Bank of Detroit, one of the store’s creditors, approached Joseph Crowley. Crowley agreed on the condition that his two brothers and Milner join him and Crowley, Milner and Company was born.

Immediately after the incorporation of Crowley, Milner and Co., its owners envisioned the store as one of the highest quality retail operations in Detroit. At the turn of the twentieth century, Detroit was regarded as one of the most affluent cities in the United States, and Crowley, Milner & Co. helped to uphold this image. The owners stocked the store with luxurious clothing and gifts imported from Europe and opened a full-service restaurant and grocery store. Within ten years, the Crowley, Milner & Co. expanded its building and was the largest department store in Michigan.