Rhodes Brothers
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Rhodes Brothers was a department store located in Tacoma, Washington established in 1892 as a coffee shop in downtown Tacoma. The store greatly expanded through the years including having a tea room, a branch library and a separate budget store. At one time there were signs on highways in Washington that said, "All roads lead to Rhodes," giving the number of miles to the Rhodes store in Tacoma.[1] Additionally there was a Rhodes Brothers store at the Villa Plaza Shopping Center in Lakewood, Washington that opened in 1957[2]. At some point Rhodes was acquired by Western Department Stores Inc. which also owned Kahn's of Oakland, CA and Olds & King of Portland, OR. In 1960 the name of the company was changed to Rhodes Western and all the stores became Rhodes. In 1969 Rhodes Western was acquired by Amfac which owned the Liberty House chain of department stores and took on that name. Liberty House opened a location in Tacoma Mall in 1973 where Rhodes Western had been considering opening a location before they were bought out. The Lakewood & Tacoma Mall locations were sold to Frederick & Nelson in 1979. It is unclear whether the downtown Tacoma Rhodes store was ever converted to a Liberty House or whether it was simply closed. The downtown Tacoma location was bought by the University of Puget Sound in 1980.
It is believed that there was no connection to the Rhodes Department Stores of Seattle (bought by Lamonts) which closed in the late 1960s[3].
[edit] References
- ^ South Sound Photo Album: Rhodes Brothers Department Store downtown Tacoma
- ^ Malls of America: Villa Plaza Shopping Center
- ^ MISCmedia: Dime Store Nostalgia
[edit] External Links
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