Looking Back | Looking Back Archive

Store’s closing was a symbol of change

by Paul Levengood
for Virginia Business
August 2006

Jan. 22, 1992, marked the end of an era in downtown Richmond. On that day, the Thalhimers department store on Broad Street closed its doors. In addition to the shuttering of a landmark beloved by generations of shoppers, the city’s once-vibrant business district was losing its last major retailer. On both counts, it was clear history was being made.

In 1842, German immigrant William Thalhimer founded a dry goods business. Through the 19th and early 20th centuries, the store moved several times. It also expanded its range of offerings and became one of the first Richmond examples of the retailing revolution known as the department store.

Thalhimers operated a single store until 1949 when, under the leadership of William B. Thalhimer Jr., it began an expansion campaign with the purchase of a store in Winston-Salem, N.C. By the late 1970s the company had become one of the most successful chains in the South, with 26 stores in four states.

While Thalhimers was undergoing its expansion, a demographic change was taking place in Richmond and across the nation. Post–World War II prosperity ushered in a wave of suburban development that drew many city dwellers to the enticing wide-open spaces of the crabgrass frontier.

This movement was aided by the construction of highways that made commuting by automobile practical. It also was spurred by the civil rights movement and integration, which prompted many whites to leave cities in which African-Americans increasingly wielded political power.

Following its customers who were leaving Richmond, Thalhimers opened a number of stores in suburban Henrico and Chesterfield counties. Many suburbanites opted to shop close to home. As a result, downtown businesses experienced a precipitous drop in sales — from $145 million to $131 million between 1954 and 1977. One after another, retailers abandoned the city for suburban homes. The Thalhimer family affirmed its commitment to its flagship store on Broad Street, but larger economic realities would make that untenable.

The company’s success made it a tempting target, and it succumbed to the trend of mergers and acquisitions. Reflecting the consolidation of the retailing industry, Thalhimers was sold in 1978 and again in 1990, each time to a larger concern. With no longstanding attachment to downtown Richmond, the last parent company, May Department Stores, simply saw the Broad Street store as a money-loser, not the final symbol of a central business district barely holding on. In 1992 it closed the store forever. The other Thalhimers stores were consolidated with the Hecht’s chain.

Richmond’s downtown is just beginning to recover from losing its role as a regional retail magnet. And the stories of Thalhimers and the fate of downtown are instructive of trends that have affected many other cities, in Virginia and beyond.

The Virginia Historical Society is documenting the story of Thalhimers and other Virginia businesses in the new Reynolds Center for Business History. The iconic Thalhimers clock from the Sixth Street façade is featured in the recently opened exhibition, “Virginians at Work.”

Paul Levengood is managing editor of the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography at the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond. He also serves as the program coordinator of the Reynolds Business History Center.