Barker Bros.
Barker Bros. was a retailer of furniture, home furnishings, and housewares based in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded as Barker and Mueller in 1880, the business operated under various names through 1992.
History
[edit]Obadiah Truax Barker had owned upholstery and mattress shops in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Grand Rapids, Michigan.[1]
In 1880, Barker was visiting Los Angeles on a trip from Colorado Springs to San Jose, California, when he overheard an outraged Otto Müller at a horticultural exhibition complain about the high cost of furnishing his home from the only large furniture store in the city at the time.[1] Barker approached Müller and together they founded a furniture shop on N. Spring Street near the Los Angeles Plaza, called Barker and Mueller.
In 1880, Los Angeles was a town with a population of 11,183. Its population would increase tenfold in the next twenty years, and tenfold again, to over one million, in the 25 years after that.[1]
In 1883, Barker bought out Müller and went into partnership with W. S. Allen, forming Barker & Allen, and moved to the Merced Theatre Building at 8–10 Main Street (pre-1890 numbering), also just off the Los Angeles Plaza. Barker bought out Allen that same year and the firm became O. T. Barker & Sons.[2]
Later the store moved to 3rd & Spring streets at the Stimson Building, Los Angeles' first steel-frame building, where their rent of $1500 was ten times what they had paid on Main Street, a sign of the rapid growth of Los Angeles at the time.[citation needed]
Again they moved – the move was done overnight and widely reported – this time to the seven-story Van Nuys building at 716–738 S. Broadway,[1] the area which is now known as the Historic Core, the part of Broadway that was the main commercial street of Los Angeles from around 1910 until World War Two.[2]
1926 flagship store
[edit]On January 25, 1926,[3] the company built and moved into an eleven-story building at 818 W. 7th Street, stretching the full south side block from Flower to Figueroa streets, with 23 acres (1,000,000 sq ft) of floor space. A 1931 article reported that they employed 1,444 people (including 432 women).[2]
Branches
[edit]The company launched branch stores across Greater Los Angeles and in Bakersfield, with 15 branches by 1955: Hollywood opened in 1927, Long Beach in 1929, plus Glendale, Inglewood, Huntington Park, Santa Monica, Alhambra, Pasadena, Crenshaw, Westwood, Pomona, Van Nuys, Burbank, Santa Ana, Whittier, and Bakersfield, plus a decorator store in Beverly Hills. The company had sales of $30 million at that time, with two-thirds coming from the downtown flagship.[1]
Epilogue
[edit]The Downtown flagship closed September 24, 1984.[4] Prisma Capital acquired the company in a leveraged buyout and, having taken on too much debt, caused Barker Bros. to go bankrupt and close in 1992.
External links
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e "Barker Bros. to Mark Its Diamond Anniversary". Los Angeles Times. January 2, 1955. p. 20 (24). Retrieved 19 May 2019.
- ^ a b c Whitaker, Alma (July 13, 1931). "Furniture Has Its Romance: Fascinating Tale Found in Barker Brothers: Enormous Business Started by Outraged Man: Fourth Generation Working at Present Time". Los Angeles Times. p. 23. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
- ^ "Barker Bros.' Magnificent New Store Opens to Throngs of Exclaiming Visitors". Los Angeles Evening Express. January 25, 1926. p. 4.
- ^ "Ad for Barker Bros. Los Angeles". Los Angeles Times. September 24, 1984. p. 6.