Henry's (clothiers)

Henry's was a family-owned clothing retailer in Wichita, Kansas from 1911 until 1993.

The store sponsored the Henry Clothiers basketball team which won three consecutive national Amateur Athletic Union championships in 1930-1932 at a time when colleges, corporate-sponsored teams, and private athletic clubs competed in the same tournament.

The franchise was founded as B. Levitt & Sons in 1911 by Russian immigrant Bernard Levitt.

After Bernard died his sons Henry (1894-June 20, 1968), Leo (known as Buddy)(died 1978) and Isadore (1898-1985) Levitt renamed the business Henry's. He opened a new store at 420 E. Douglas two blocks west of the original store. A 1929 renovation included Wichita's first large neon store.

In 1948 a store opened at Broadway and William. It was followed by one in 1954 at Douglas and Oliver which eventually expanded to two stores across from each other (referred to at the time as "Twin Corners"). During the 1970s it opened in the Twin Lakes Shopping Center, Towne East Square and in the early 1980s it opened a store at Towne West Square. In 1982 it closed the Twin Lakes store, the downtown store in 1984 and the Towne West store in 1988.

Henry Levitt organize the Henry Clothiers basketball team in 1928-29 to provide around Barry Dunham and Ross McBurney who were on the 1925 Wichita High School East team that won the state championship as well as the National Interscholastic Basketball Tournament in Chicago. The two had gone to Wichita State University where it placed third and McBurney was named to the 1927 NCAA Men's Basketball All-Americans team. Levitt lured the two along with another WSU player Harold Davis. Dutch Lonborg coached the team to an AAU title game at Convention Hall in Kansas City where it lost to Cook's Paint 51-35.

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