Thalhimers
 |
|
| Private | |
| Industry | Department store |
| Fate | Merger with Hecht's |
| Successors |
|
| Founded | 1842 in Richmond, Virginia |
| Founder | William Thalhimer |
| Defunct | February 1992 |
| Headquarters | Richmond, Virginia |
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Area served
|
Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee |
Thalhimers was a department store in the Southern United States. Based in Richmond, Virginia, the venerable chain at its peak operated dozens of stores in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and one store in Memphis, Tennessee. Thalhimer's traditions were most notable during the holiday season with visits from the sticker-distributing Snow Bear and, in later years, the arrival of Lego Land at the downtown Richmond store.
William Thalhimer immigrated to the Richmond area from Germany in the early 19th century. In 1842 he opened a dry good store which his grandson, William B. Thalhimer, transformed into Richmond's first department store. In 1978, the company, by then developed into a regional department store chain, was acquired by California-based Carter Hawley Hale Stores. It was at this time that the apostrophe was dropped from the company's logo, making the name "Thalhimers".
At one time, Carter Hawley Hale owned several notable department stores, including upscale Neiman-Marcus and John Wanamaker. After poor financial results throughout the 1980s, and saddled by the effects of leveraged debt from fending off two leveraged buyout attempts, in 1990, Carter Hawley Hale decided to concentrate on its West Coast department stores such as The Broadway, The Emporium, and Capwell's and sold Thalhimers to St. Louis-based May Company for US$325 million.
The Winston-Salem, North Carolina store, housed in the Sosnik-Morris-Early Commercial Block, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
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Wikipedia