When J.B. Hunter first opened its three huge department stores in Memphis — in Frayser, Whitehaven, and smack in the middle of town at 3030 Poplar Avenue — it was a fairly upscale place for shopping. After all, it had a separate "Smoke Shoppe" offering pipes and cigars, with separate departments selling customers nice jewelry, cameras, and even Oriental carpets.
But in the late 1970s, the store management decided they needed to downgrade a bit, so they changed the name of each store here to Hunter Family Discount Center. And the Lauderdale Library just happens to have a sales flyer from those days, as you can see here.
Quite a few products were hailed as "doorbusters" — suggesting, I guess, that these prices were so low that customers would quite literally break down the doors to get at them. After all, who can resist a 35-light set of holiday lights for only 97 cents, or six rolls of gift-wrapping paper for only 79 cents? A bag of 25 bows was only 27 cents, and D-cell batteries could be had for 43 cents.
The most expensive thing promoted during this holiday sale was a "kiddie phono" for $7.88 ("our lowest price!") with three speeds and a "permanent needle." Plus customers could enter for the chance to fill the "six-foot toy-filled Christmas stocking" shown here, though it's rather hard — downright impossible, in fact — to tell just what those toys were in the illustration.
The attempt to keep the former J.B. Hunter stores open by rebranding them ultimately failed. The main store on Poplar served as the headquarters for AutoZone for several years, but was demolished to make way for the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library.
