The Boston Store

The Boston Store was founded in 1884 in Erie when the Rochester, New York, firm Mellon, Elliott & Quigley opened the Erie Dry Goods store at 1604 Peach Street and then suffered a business failure in 1885, providing an opportunity for the New York firm Sibley, Lindsay & Curr, which owned Sibley’s Department Store in Rochester, to take over the Peach Street store. Sibley’s store in Rochester were often called the Boston store by the locals there, which became the inspiration for the name to be given to their newly acquired Erie store. Sibley’s needed a local management team to oversee the Boston Store. Elisha H. Mack Jr. was hired and placed in charge, managing the store with his partners Spittal and Roy under the moniker of the Erie Dry Goods Company. In 1902 the management of the store was officially incorporated under the name, with Elisha H. Mack Jr. as president, and Robert Spittal as treasurer. Mack retired in 1925, shortly after his longtime business partner, Spittal, died, ending the company.

In 1887 the store was moved from its original location on Peach Street to the 718 State Street, which was just vacated by the Warner Brothers Theater. From 1887 to 1930 the Boston Store expanded, purchasing more of the property on its block. By the late 1920s the store had managed to acquired frontage on all four surrounding streets — Peach, State, 7th and 8th. In 1929 a new Boston Store was designed by the Erie-architectural firm Shutts & Morrison. The new store was completed in 1931 and was estimated to have cost $2 million. From 1949 to 1953 renovations and expansion of the Boston Store were carried out by the local architectural firm Myers & Krider. The three-story portion of the Boston Store facing Peach Street was raised to six in 1949; the three-story structure on 8th Street was demolished and replaced with a five-story one the next year. In 1953 escalators were installed on the first through the fifth floors, followed by air-conditioning on all six floors in 1966. The Boston Store was the first store in Erie to install an emergency sprinkler system as an original feature to the building.

In the 1930s the Boston Store placed black and white signs every few miles on fifteen major roads leading to Erie. They were first made of cypress, then redwood, and finally aluminum. In 1971 the Boston Store was required to remove all the signs as the result of the Highway Beautification Act, which prohibited their placement near the roads. But people wanted to remove the signs themselves and keep them as souvenirs.

Many former Erie residents requested a mile marker that read the distance from their home. The Boston Store was happy to oblige. Perhaps the farthest was in St. Paul, Minnesota, which read 932 miles to the Boston Store.

The Boston Store was bought by Associated Dry Goods in 1959, and management of the store was assumed by Horne's department store of Pittsburgh in December of 1975. In spite of having the foresight to open branch stores at the West Erie Plaza in 1968, and the Millcreek Mall in 1974, the loss of sales caused by competition from the Millcreek Mall, in nearby Millcreek Township, forced the Boston Store to closed on July 7, 1979.

The Boston Store was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 24, 1996.

Boston Store (year unknown)

Boston Store, 718-726 State Street.

Boston Store Employee Picnic Day, State Street (July 1917)

The Boston Store, left side of the picture above, would hold an annual picnic for their employees. On the day of the picnic the store would close at 1:00 p.m. and the employees would take trolleys, chartered by the store, to Elk Park for this popular event that was attended also by both the store's customers and the general public.

Boston Store (1960s)

Boston Store (1950s)

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