Margaret Young arranges a display of lighters in the Smoke Shoppe at the J.B. Hunter store on Poplar Avenue.
Dear Vance: Didn’t a women’s clothing store occupy the current site of the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library? — T.L., Memphis
Dear T.L.: It wasn’t just a clothing store for women, but a full-scale department store — like Sears or Goldsmith’s — called J.B. Hunter. Part of a national chain of stores owned by the Allied Stores Corporation, the store at 3030 Poplar was one of three in the Memphis area.
The first J.B. Hunter opened in 1968 at Highway 51 and Raines Road in Whitehaven, soon followed by a second location at Frayser Blvd. and Rangeline Road in 1969. These two stores were such a hit with Memphis shoppers that company officials quickly announced plans for a third, and considerably larger store, for the East Memphis area. That one opened on October 1, 1970, on a 13-acre lot between East High School and Stringer Brothers Nursery. Ads promoted it as “Memphis’ Most Exciting Department Store.”
“Our stores have met with excellent response from the public,” Seymour Ainbinder, president of the chain, told reporters. “Memphis is a forward-looking city in an area with a solid economy. We want to grow with it.”
Now you’re probably wondering: Who was this “J.B. Hunter”? Well, if he was indeed a real person, he came from Boston. Years before, Allied Stores had acquired a retail establishment in that city called J.B. Hunter. “The name was just floating around, and we thought it had a nice ring to it,” said Ainbinder. “So we decided to put that name on these stores.”
The first two stores in Memphis were one story. The Poplar location would be the largest store in the system, a two-story building comprising more than 150,000 square feet, complete with an outdoor garden center. And these were decidedly upscale stores when they first opened. Shoppers who entered the Poplar store wandered through spacious departments devoted to clothing and accessories for men, women, boys, and girls, as you might expect. But the downstairs also had separate — and nicely decorated — departments for jewelry, shoes, books, and stationery, while a cozy “Smoke Shoppe” offered the latest pipes, lighters, cigars, cigarettes, and smoking paraphernalia. There was even a pet department on the ground floor.
The building was demolished in 1997 to make way for the new Central Library.
To reach the second floor, shoppers could take an elevator, but the truly unique aspect of J.B. Hunter — and pretty much what anyone who shopped there has always remembered — was its “inclinator.” Much like a long escalator without steps, this was a moving ramp that smoothly carried shoppers upstairs. Obviously, a second ramp took them back down again. J.B. Hunter shopping carts were fitted with grooved wheels, which locked into grooves in the ramp, so shoppers didn’t have to leave their carts behind.
Upstairs — and again, I’m talking about the Poplar store here, because it had the most to offer — customers encountered housewares, appliances, fabric, lamps, gifts, hardware, small appliances, cameras, luggage, records, hardware, paint, toys, and sporting goods.
Now, sporting goods sold just about everything except guns and ammo, but it did offer a selection of bowling balls. And the department happened to be located at the top (or end) of that inclinator. So on more than one occasion pranksters “accidentally” sent a bowling ball down that ramp, where it careened into the children’s clothing department at the bottom. As far as I know, nobody was ever harmed as a result of these hijinks, which finally came to an end when store management moved the bowling balls elsewhere.
After shopping, customers could dine in a nice cafeteria on the second floor, called the Fife and Drum, even though the store itself didn’t follow any particularly historic theme. I happen to know that employees had their own name for this place — the Filth and Scum — but you know how smart-alecky store clerks can be.
Over the years, plenty of well-known Memphians worked at J.B. Hunter. At the Poplar store, Ray Doty — later the founder/owner of the Art Center here — was hired as the store’s resident artist, designing ads and banners and hand-painting colorful murals for various departments. Two other former J.B. Hunter workers are today my esteemed colleagues at Memphis magazine, and how “We Saw You” columnist Michael Donahue and executive editor Michael Finger came to sell books and stationery always gets a laugh. From them, I mean.
“I was majoring in journalism at Memphis State, and Mike was majoring in English,” says Donahue, “so the personnel manager thought it made sense to put us in the book department.” Finger points out, “And since we also sold stationery, it introduced us to the exciting world of paper, and look where we are today.”
During his stint at J.B. Hunter, Donahue would later work in the toy and camera departments. Finger found himself in lamps and gifts. “I spent my days assembling cheap lamps and furniture,” he says, “which customers quickly returned when they figured out the displays I made — carefully bolted and glued together — were much sturdier than the flimsy things they had to assemble at home.” For his part, Donahue remembers selling “Vanity Fair” tape recorders, “and they were always broken. Customers returned every one we sold.”
Now this brings up an interesting aspect of the history of J.B. Hunter. When the store first opened, it was indeed a fancy establishment, because it hoped to draw customers from the truly fine stores like Goldsmith’s and Lowenstein’s. The gift department sold original oil paintings, and next to that was a nice oriental rug department. The clothing was high quality, shoes were name-brand, and the jewelry was first-rate. But somewhere along the way, store management decided they should model the J.B. Hunter stores after the “new kid on the block” who had just showed up in Memphis — a fledgling company called Kmart. And so they made dramatic changes to the stores.
Michael Donahue and Michael Finger, shown hard at work at J.B. Hunter in the early 1970s, display the energy and enthusiasm that made the store such a success.
Gone was much of the high-end merchandise. Walls and fancy dividers that separated the departments came down, so customers could now see across the entire store, with wide aisles, low shelves, and sale items stacked on the floor. Prices were slashed, cheaper inventory was brought in, and J.B. Hunter adopted one of the most liberal return policies in the industry. Customers could return anything — broken, damaged, or if they just didn’t like it — without any time limit, without a receipt, and even if it hadn’t been purchased at J.B. Hunter. My colleagues will testify that whenever they worked in the returns department, it was a challenge handling a refund for an item that obviously came from, say, Sears.
“One day a woman brought back a Kenmore coffee pot and said she didn’t like it,” says Finger. “She had owned it so long she had burned a hole in the bottom. It wasn’t one of ours, but I think we offered her something like $12 and she took it.”
The once-fancy store was doomed, and in 1979 Montgomery Ward purchased the company, changing the store names across the country to Jefferson Ward. Even the financial power of that national chain couldn’t keep the business afloat, and in 1983, all the J.B. Hunter stores closed in Memphis.
Despite some questionable management policies, I’ll say this about J.B. Hunter. A special bond seemed to develop among the employees, and once you get them talking about “the old days,” the two Michaels can immediately recall co-workers from 40 years ago. Readers may know some of these folks; heck, for that matter, my readers may be some of these folks. These names come up in any conversation about the place: Steve Morrison, Bill Ervin, Sadie Kinsey, Janice Cassini, Charlotte Seat, Lynn Aitchison, David Phalan, Joanne Bazemore, Herschel Dalton, Sharon McCraw, John Oliver, Brenda Silverman — do you really want me to list all of them?
Not a single Lauderdale, of course.
The shuttered store at 3030 Poplar went through an interesting transformation. Within a year, it became the national headquarters for Malone & Hyde, the wholesale grocery giant that spawned AutoShack, which became AutoZone. But in 1995, AutoZone relocated to its stunning chrome-and-glass offices downtown on Front Street, and once again, the former J.B. Hunter store stood empty.
By this time, there was talk of moving the main library from its cramped quarters at Peabody and McLean into the old department store, but apparently the building couldn’t hold the weight of all those books. Instead, in 1997, wrecking crews pulled down the J.B. Hunter store on Poplar, to make way for the gleaming new Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library. I presume the inclinator was demolished along with the rest of the store, and that’s really a shame. It would have made a fun addition to the Lauderdale Mansion.
Got a question for Vance?
Email: askvance@memphismagazine.com
Mail: Vance Lauderdale, Memphis magazine,460 Tennessee Street #200, Memphis, TN 38103
