Stone & Thomas
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Stone and Thomas | |
 |
|
| Type | Department store |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1847 |
| Headquarters | Wheeling, West Virginia |
| Industry | Retail |
| Products | Clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, and housewares. |
| Website | None |
Stone & Thomas was a United States chain of department stores. Based in Wheeling, West Virginia, the chain had stores located in the state of West Virginia, as well as in the commonwealths of Virginia and Kentucky. The company was bought out in 1998 by Elder-Beerman, an Ohio-based chain of department stores.
Contents |
[edit] History
Stone and Thomas was founded in 1847 in Wheeling, West Virginia. Also referred to as Stone's or "The People's Store", it was a West Virginia institution for 150 years. From its flagship store in downtown Wheeling, it expanded into Huntington in the 1910's, Charleston in 1928, and in most of West Virginia's major cities. In 1956 Stone and Thomas bought out Broida's of Parkersburg, and for a short time it was called Broida's, Stone & Thomas. The chain grew up to 19 stores in West Virginia and 2 in Virginia.
Stone's was a very teenager-friendly store. It sponsered high school fashion shows, held tea parties, and had a Stone-agers program for teens. Throughout the 1990's, the company wanted to focus more on its suburban stores and closed several of the older downtown stores in Huntington and Clarksburg.
In 1998 Stone & Thomas was bought by Elder-Beerman for $38 million. All existing Stone & Thomas stores were converted to Elder-Beerman by 1999. Six locations were sold to Peebles and three more locations were sold to Belk [1] . To this day, the Huntington store remains vacant awaiting use, still bearing the S & T logo, while the downtown Wheeling store is currently being converted into office space[2]. Also, the downtown Charleston store, built in 1948, is currently being gutted and remodeled for a retail complex.
[edit] Former Locations
[edit] Kentucky
- Ashland: Kyova Mall (opened 1991, now Elder-Beerman)
[edit] Virginia
- Charlottesville: (Opened 1991, now Belk) [3]
[edit] West Virginia
- Barboursville: Huntington Mall (Opened ?)
- Beckley: Crossroads Mall (Opened 1981, now Belk) [4]
- Beckley: Raleigh Mall (Opened 1974)
- Bluefield: Mercer Mall (Opened ?, now Belk) [5]
- Charleston: Downtown (Opened 1928, moved to new town center in 1997)
- Charleston: Kanawha Mall (Opened 1985)
- Clarksburg: Downtown (Closed 1990)
- Elkins: Valley Pointe Shopping Plaza (Moved in late 90's from Tygart Valley Mall, now Peebles)
- Huntington: Downtown (Closed 1996)
- New Martinsville: (Opened 1995)
- Parkersburg: Downtown (Broida's,Stone&Thomas from 1956 to 1998)
- Teays Valley: Liberty Square (Opened 1996)
- Summersville: (Opened 1994)
- Wheeling: Downtown (Opened 1847, New building in 1890; closed 1998)
