H.& S. Pogue Company
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The H. & S. Pogue Company was a Cincinnati based department store founded by two brothers, Henry and Samuel Pogue. They first came from Ireland to Cincinnati and worked in their uncle’s dry goods store. They later were able to buy him out and H. & S. Pogue Dry Goods Company was established in 1863.
During its heydey of the 1920s to the 1960s, Pogue's was well-known by many generations of Cincinnatians for their elaborate Christmas displays, including the Enchanted Forest in the Carew Tower arcade with "Pogie and Patter," artificial deer wired with microphones into which children would whisper their Christmas wishes. In the store's fourth floor auditorium, a miniature train wound through a holiday wonderland, convenient to the Toys, Books, and Music departments.
Pogue's several restaurants were also popular with downtown shoppers and business people. The Ice Cream Bridge was created from the soda fountain of a demolished pharmacy in a quaint Cincinnati suburb, and functionally connected the store's Fourth and Fifth Street stores on the second level of the Carew Tower arcade. In fact, each level of the store's parking garage (still in use for Tower Place Mall as of 2008) was named for a flavor of store-made ice cream available at the Ice Cream Bridge. More formal dining was available at the Camargo Room on the store's fifth floor, where an elaborate dinner buffet was served each Monday and Thursday when the downtown store offered extended hours. During Pogue's final years, a fashionable champagne-and-pate' bar was opened on the Main Floor in a revived Housewares department known as the Fourth Street Market.
In fact, when Pogue's was merged into L. S. Ayres in 1983, Fourth Street Market became its own brand and was featured in all larger Ayres' stores and was also branded on a line of private label gourmet foods.
Pogue's was purchased by Associated Dry Goods Corp in 1962, at that time the third largest retailer in the United States with such nameplates as Lord & Taylor, Caldor (discount store), and Loehmann's in addition to the 16 regional chains including Pogue's. ADG merged Pogue's and Louisville's Stewarts Dry Goods with their Indianapolis based L. S. Ayres stores in 1983. Three years later, in October 1986, ADG itself was acquired in a US$2.2 billion merger with May Department Stores. The four former Pogue's suburban locations were sold to Hess's and JCPenney in 1987 and 1988 and the downtown store shuttered.
[edit] Former locations
- Downtown Cincinnati (building constructed 1915, closed 1988, demolished for Tower Place Mall)
- Tri-County Mall, Cincinnati, Ohio (opened 1960, renamed L. S. Ayres 1983, sold to JCPenney 1988, closed 2005, former location redeveloped as part of mall)
- Northgate Mall, Cincinnati, Ohio (opened 1972, renamed L. S. Ayres 1983, sold to JCPenney 1988, demolished 2008 for Rave Motion Pictures)
- Kenwood Towne Centre (originally Kenwood Plaza), Kenwood, Ohio (opened 1956, renamed L. S. Ayres 1983, sold to JCPenney 1988, sold to Parisian 1993, closed 2007, demolished for new Nordstrom)
- Florence Mall, Florence, Kentucky (opened 1976, renamed L. S. Ayres 1983, sold to Hess's 1987, closed became Lazarus Home Store 1994, now Macy's Home)
