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Source Collection
William Nowland Van Powell papers, Special Collections Department, University of Memphis Libraries
Identifier
sc.0258.los_001.009
Description
Panoramic image of the staff of John Gerber's department store at their annual picnic at Riverside Park, Memphis, Tennessee, in 1924. The photographer was Bolton. Mary Herbst, a cashier, is identified in the photograph. John Gerber opened his first store on Main Street in Memphis in 1880. It expanded greatly over the years, eventually taking up most of the block. In 1949, Gerber's added the first escalators most Memphians had ever seen. When retailers began to abandon Main Street in the 1960s, Gerber's struggled to survive. An early-morning fire on December 29, 1968, did more than one million dollars' damage and closed the store for four months. Just three years later, another blaze struck, and again the owners rebuilt and reopened but the store closed for good in 1974. Other stores also closed around the city in the following years.
Date Created
6-9-2021
Date
1924
Recommended Citation
"Gerber's department store staff picnic, 1924" (2021). Images. 1.
https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/speccoll-mss-wnvpowell1/1
Keywords
Department stores--Tennessee--Memphis.
