Historic Athens: Shopping at the Owen Brook Dry Goods Company | New

Nowadays, we’ve gotten used to ordering our clothes online or finding them in local big box stores. However, if you lived in Athens a hundred years ago, chances are you were just going downtown to a dry goods store – and one of them was the Owen-Broom Dry Goods Company that was on the place of the courthouse for twenty years.

So what are dry goods? We don’t see the word much these days, but the term originated in the UK and has become (according to one source) the collective name for textile fabrics and manufactured items. In Athens, this meant that dry goods stores, like the Owen Broom store, sold clothes and shoes for the family.

And they carefully planned their offerings, as reported in the Athens Weekly Review of August 26, 1926, when they announced that a new department was coming.

The headline read: The Owen-Broom Dry Goods Company Announces Adding Ready-To-Wear and Headwear to Their Store. In addition, said the reporter, “The store is now being redeveloped to take care of these two departments and Miss Eunice Allen of Dallas, experienced in these areas, has been hired to take over the departments.

So what can the buyer find in the Owen Broom store? We have an idea of ​​their advertisement in the Athens weekly review of August 4, 1932.

Suppose you are a newly trained lawyer and want to look your best in court and with your associates – you will find what you need at the Owen Broom store. You could get a dress shirt … in solid colors and fancy patterns that used to cost $ 2.50 and now has a clearance price of 77 cents! And for a new pair of shoes, you can get Oxfords dressed in black or beige for $ 3.95 (originally valued at $ 5!). Men’s socks (in plain and fancy patterns) were 25c. And in an era when most men wore hats, especially in business, you could pick them up at the Owen Broom store for $ 1.88.

For his off hours, Mr. Lawyer could find blue denim men’s work plants for 77 cents, work shirts for 49 cents, and Ms. Lawyer could purchase a women’s hose (probably not silk) described as a hose. thistle 300 women’s needles, normal value 50c, now pair 25 cents.

So what else would Ms. Lawyer find? Since nylon was several years away, she could get hold of silk stockings, described as ladies’ pure silk stockings in sheer chiffon and service weight … formerly $ 1.50 and now 44c.!

There were Ladies Dresses A Lot of Ladies Wash Frocks in … Sunny Sues, and Spic and Span made … 77c and 2 for $ 1.50. Need something maybe better? Then you could get dresses in satin, linen, for 88c $ and 98c.

Or for silk dresses, silk suits, pints and flat pancakes [sic] values ​​up to $ 9. 00 – only $ 1.98. Or for the taller woman in size 14-44, there were silk dresses that were worth up to $ 16.75 but Owen Broom was selling for $ 3.88.

So suppose Mr. or Mrs. Lawyer wanted to take advantage of these prices, where would they go? Apparently the Owen Broom Dry Goods Company occupied several different locations in the courthouse plaza and one of them was described in the Athens Weekly Review for January 26, 1933. The headline said the store had to move. on the east side of the square in … the building now occupied by the Mandelstram store.

As part of the move, the store will offer much of its merchandise at cut-price prices. Store spokesperson Reagan Owen explained their reasoning, “We think it will be better to sacrifice the profits on this merchandise rather than endure the heavy expenses and labor involved in the move because the smaller building doesn is not big enough to take care of it.

However, the Owen Broom company closed its Athens location in 1941 when the January 23 issue of the Athens Weekly Review announced a reopening in Fairfield. MJB White of Jacksonville and his associates oversaw the move and the opening of the new store.

As a bit of history, the reporter said that for many years the company operated large dry goods establishments in the building on the south side of the square, which now houses the Brookshire store. The store was moved seven years ago to its location on the east side of the plaza.