Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Family business brouhaha cues sale
It was March 1921, and shoppers were in luck. The famous Pfeifer Bros. — Leo, Harry, Albert and Preston — wanted to raise a large amount of money in a short amount of time.
Everything was on sale at the Pfeifer Bros. department store and at the Albert Pfeifer & Bros. jewelry store.
Full-page and double-truck ads in the Arkansas Democrat and Arkansas Gazette declared it a “Dissolution Sale,” but the stores weren’t going out of business: One of the owners was.
After eight years of helping his brothers build their downtown Little Rock department store into a massive retail success, Albert wanted out of the family corporation.
To remember shopping in the old Pfeifer Bros. store, one needs to have lived more than enough years to qualify for Medicare.
It’s more likely Friend Reader remembers shopping at the business that replaced it, the old Pfeifer-Blass store created by the great Arkansas entrepreneur William T. Dillard in the 1960s after he bought Pfeifers of Arkansas and the equally historic Gus Blass Co. department store. Some wintry evening beside the fire we must put our heads together and swap stories about that elevator and those lacy goods and how awful it was to be a chunky child and directed by the elevator operator to the floor with the chunky childrens clothing.
There’s no time for that today and — no offense — please keep
your heads at least 6 feet from mine. But we can entertain ourselves separately by reading about the historic storefronts between Sixth and Main streets that once housed Pfeifer Bros. In 2000, Cheryl Griffith Nichols nominated the Beaux Arts building to the National Register of Historic Places, and her document is full of tidbits. (Here’s a shortcut link: arkansasonline. com/38nom.)
Reading it, we learn (if we didn’t know already) that the Pfeifer Bros. were in fact brothers and sons of a legendary Arkansas merchant, Joseph Pfeifer. A tailor from Germany, he came to the United States as a teenager, with — so the legend goes — $5 to his name. After more than a decade at New York, in 1865 he opened a clothing store in Little Rock with a partner, G.F. Miller. They sold handmade woolen socks for 25 cents a pair and suits for $10. Miller left after a year and Joseph soon found himself competing with other Main Street retailers, especially Gus Blass and Mark Matthias Cohn.
Joseph’s boys helped him in the business. When he retired, the sons carried on. They bought three storefronts on Main Street and hired architect Charles L. Thompson to redesign them into one large enterprise in 1912. They also owned other properties downtown and operated an outlet at Camp Pike.
Albert was vice president, assistant general manager and merchandise manager, according to a report about his pending exit in the Jan. 12, 1921, Democrat. He had a long history in trade, having started his own store in June 1896. He had needed a court’s permission then to open his jewelry store at 406 Main St. because he was a minor.
In late 1920, Albert announced he wanted out. The others could buy out his interest or he would buy out theirs.
I remember reading an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette report in 1996 about a reunion of the modern members of the Pfeifer family in which descendants explained that the animosity and infighting among Joseph Pfeifer’s children was no secret in the 1920s and ’30s. The siblings (who included a sister, Bertha) did not get along.
Settling who had to pay what to whom led to a lawsuit filed by Leo, Harry and Preston in Pulaski County Chancery Court; but by February 1921, the deal was decided. Newspapers reported that Albert would trade his interest in the brothers’ joint enterprises for a sum unmentioned as well as a property valued at $100,000 near Seventh and Main streets. Then he moved his family to New York.
To raise money to complete the deal, the remaining brothers put on simultaneous sales. Ads warned: “This sale will continue only until we have succeeded in raising the necessary amount of cash to liquidate Mr. Albert Pfeifer’s large holdings. It is therefore advisable for everyone to take immediate advantage of this wonderful money-saving opportunity.”
And folks did. The Gazette reported March 5, “Pfeifer Bros. employed 75 extra sales people, and even that number were unable to wait on the buyers Thursday and Friday, so additional salesladies and salesmen will be employed for today and Monday.”
At the jewelry store, discounts ranged from 20% off diamond-set platinum and gold items (except solitaires) to 33.33 % off La Tausca, Regent and Richelieu pearls.
New spring and summer clothing was on sale at the department store. With spring suits going for $39 and spring dresses $23, imagine all the Little Rock girls whose families bought their Easter finery early.
The sale ended March 26, followed immediately by an Easter sale.
The March 1921 issues of the Gazette and Democrat mentioned other pioneering Pfeifers besides the four brothers. I see very cute ads placed by Clarence Pfeifer, who owned the Pfeifer Cleaning Co. at 914 Main St. There also was a story about Eugene Pfeifer, who owned Mechanics Lumber and was building himself a fabulous home on Fairfax Avenue in Pulaski Heights.
But my guess is readers were more interested in those sales. From the proceeds and the reconfiguring of their corporation, the brothers built a dominant business that for decades allowed Arkansans to dress in modern clothing and outfit their homes like proper middle class Americans at a reasonable cost.
Today, as I wander about the internet bravely risking my identity and coincidentally burdening my recycling bin with vast stacks of cardboard, I almost miss that elevator operator and the bother that was finding a place to park downtown.