Foley's

Foley's was a regional

Over the next decade, May spent heavily to build new stores, replace outdated stores and refurbish existing stores. In 1993, May Department Stores consolidated

Foley's was re-acquired by

The former Downtown Houston Foley's store was demolished on Sunday, September 22, 2013.[7]

Timeline

1900s – 1951

1900: Foley Brothers was opened by brothers Pat and James Foley, two young and enterprising Irishmen, on February 12 with $2000 borrowed from an uncle. The 1,400-square-foot (130 m²) store located at 507 Main Street in

1905: With business booming, Pat and James purchased the building next door and added ready-to-wear clothing for women and children as well as millinery.

1911: The store moved to the 400 block of Main Street and was incorporated with capital of $150,000 (~$3.57 million in 2023).

1916: Foley Brothers ranked third in retail volume in Houston with $400,000 (~$7.74 million in 2023) in sales. The original 10 employees had grown to 150, and the company had 750 active charge accounts and 23,000 square feet (2,100 m²) of space.

1917: Pat and James sold Foley Brothers to George S. Cohen and George's father, Robert, a

1922: Foley Bros. moved into a three-story building next door to 400 Main Street. Later that year, the store became the city's largest department store. Shoes, a beauty shop, and radio sets were included.

1941: When the United States entered World War II, Foley Bros. diverted the efforts of the advertising and personnel departments to bond drives and other wartime services. All sales promotions were suspended during this time.

1945:

1947: Foley's opened at 1110 Main Street on October 20 in downtown Houston.^[8] Federated spent $13 million to build this new store, which was heralded by the press as the nation's "most modern department store".

1951: The first official Foley's

1960–1999

1960–1967:

1971–1979: Memorial City and Greenspoint opened in Houston, and Highland Mall opened in Austin.

1980–1987: San Jacinto, North Star, Willowbrook, Barton Creek, West Oaks, Ingram Park , Deerbrook, Post Oak, College Station, and Padre Staples opened.

Federated merges Foley’s and Dallas-based

1988: The

2005: La Cantera (San Antonio), Firewheel Shops (Garland), and Centerra (Loveland CO) opened. May and Federated Department Stores, Inc. announced plans to merge. The transaction closed in the third quarter, as a result of the merger Federated also in the process reacquired two of their former Department store chains Foley's & Filene's (Which Federated originally sold to May Company.) putting them back under the Federated Department Stores corporate umbrella for the first time since 1988.^[citation needed]

2006: Domain Mall (Austin), and Northfield Stapleton (Denver CO) opened. On February 1, 2006, the Foley's organization in Houston was dissolved and operation of its locations in

See also

• List of defunct department stores of the United States

Further reading

• Tomkins-Walsh, Teresa (July 2014). "Remembering Foley's" (PDF). 11 (3). Houston History Magazine: 31–35. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

References