Business & Economy:
Nation’s eyes were transfixed on flagship store visited by Santa and superstars
From one small store, the Foley brothers built a beloved regional retail empire.
It started with a $2,000 loan. James and Pat Foley, working as clerks for their uncle, retailer William Foley, sought the money to strike out on their own. They picked a spot near the banks of Buffalo Bayou and set up shop. Foley Brothers Dry Goods Co. was born.
Over the next 106 years, their store would rise into a regional retail empire covering five states and etch an indelible impression in Houstonians’ collective memory. On Feb. 12, 1900, the Foley brothers officially opened their new venture along Main Street near Prairie Street to serve the bustling city of 44,000 people.
It was warmly received by Houstonians, who snatched up cotton fabrics, lace, linens and men’s fashion accessories to the tune of $127.29 on the first day — roughly more than $3,000 in 2016 dollars.
By 1919, sales reached $1 million. Years later, business moved again and Foley’s became Houston’s largest department store. Stories, a basement and an auditorium were added to the building.
Foley’s growth continued, drawing the attention of Fred Lazarus Jr., who bought the store for Federated Department Stores. Federated set its sights on the 1100 block of Main and built the “store of tomorrow.”
The Main Street store quickly became iconic, boasting the country’s largest display window, a parking garage connected to the store by a tunnel, air conditioning and wide escalators.
Some 20,000 people, along with national media, crammed downtown blocks on opening day in October 1947. It was the perfect monument for an era when central business districts ruled retail. The downtown store and its seven restaurants still were a marvel when Ed Smith started at Foley’s in 1972, as were the four other stores Foley’s had in the area by then.
“It was really one-stop shopping,” said Smith, who became vice president of public relations. “We sold tires and roofing. We had a pet store. We had pharmacies in our stores.”
Houston was evolving, and Foley’s changed with it. The city spread through the 1950s and 1960s to such edge communities as Sharpstown and Pasadena.
Foley’s established stores in those areas. Its first branch store opened at Sharpstown Mall in 1961. In ensuing years, it opened stores at Almeda Mall, Northwest Mall and others.
Eventually, Foley’s set up in Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, Arlington, Tucson, Ariz., Albuquerque, N.M., and cities in three other states.
It strove to retain a mom-andpop feel. “With growth, we still had it to a certain extent,” Smith said. “But the bigger you get, the more difficult it is to have that.”
In the cities where Foley’s entered, it played a role in civic affairs. In Houston, Bob Dundas, vice president of Foley’s downtown store in the 1960s, saw sit-in protests and associated violence sweeping Southern cities. Dundas organized business leaders to silently desegregate downtown lunch counters to mitigate turmoil.
Foley’s brought a parade of stars to Houston through the years. It landed designers and celebrities launching lines at fashion shows, hawking scents or signing books: Lena Horne. Calvin Klein. Christie Brinkley. Donna Karan. Karl Lagerfeld. Cher.
And, of course, there was the annual Thanksgiving Day Parade. Launched in 1949 by Santa Claus taking a sleigh ride from the train station to the Main Street store, the Foley’s banner flagged the Houston tradition for the next 44 years.
In 1987, Foley’s acquired the Sanger Harris chain of North Texas. In 1988, Campeau Corp. bought Foley’s and sold it to May Department Stores. Four stores in the chain closed, including the downtown Dallas location. The new owners eliminated major appliances, toys and books from Foley’s offerings and turned the stores’ focus to apparel.
May company officials said then the plan was to add to Foley’s footprint of 34 stores with open at least two new stores per year for the next five years, mostly in Texas but also in Oklahoma and Arizona.
The flagship store again survived the changes. “Foley’s is committed to downtown Houston,” then-chairman Jerome R. Rossi told the Chronicle in 1989, a year after May’s purchase. “This is where the history of this company began and it would be categorically wrong to do anything to this downtown store, but to continue to grow it.”
May officials were outwardly upbeat about the downtown store’s prospects, but Lasker Meyer, chairman of Foley’s from 1982 to 1987, told the Chronicle the downtown Houston store had been losing money since 1982.
The retail landscape was changing. Malls still reigned, but the superstore was beginning its rise. Wal-Mart and the like were taking the department store model into overdrive. In 2005, Federated Department Stores bought May. As the two retail giants combined forces in their $10.4 billion merger, it was the beginning of the end for regional brands the companies held.
At that time, Foley’s had 69 stores in five states, including 16 in Houston. Federated was known for absorbing regional chains across the country and rebranding them Macy’s. It was just a matter of time before the same fate befell Foley’s.
“Forget Wall Street. In Houston, Federated Department Stores’ takeover of rival May Department Stores will reverberate most strongly on Memory Lane,” a 2005 Chronicle article declared shortly after the merger announcement. In September 2006, the nameplates formally were changed.
The Foley’s team keeps its tight bonds. “For all of us, the thing that kept all of Foley’s going was the people,” said Roz Pactor, former Foley’s fashion director and employee of 31 years.
Its alumni are spread across the country.
Reunions are based around May 1, 2006, the date Foley’s corporate offices were dissolved. There was a five-year reunion, a seventh-year reunion in 2013 when the downtown flagship store’s building was demolished, and a 10-year reunion in 2016 attended by more than 200 people.
A monthly newsletter has an address list of more than 1,000 former employees. Jeannette Spivey, who organizes the newsletter and coordinates reunions, said the newsletter helps everyone keep in touch and connect for job opportunities. Spivey started working at Foley’s as a furniture department clerk in 1971 and eventually became the first African-American woman to rise to corporate offices as executive assistant to the chief financial officer in 1984, a post she held until corporate was eliminated in 2006.
“Foley’s was not only our place of employment, we were family,” Spivey wrote in an email. “Foley’s taught us a lot. We worked hard, but we played harder and ran a successful organization.”