Buffums, originally written as Buffums' with an apostrophe, was a chain of upscale

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...

s, headquartered in

Long Beach, California Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the seventh-most populous city in California. Incorporate ...

. The Buffums chain began in 1904, when two brothers from Illinois, Charles A. and Edwin E. Buffum, together with other partners, bought the Schilling Bros., the largest dry goods store in Long Beach, and renamed it The Mercantile Co. The store grew to a large downtown department store, and starting in the 1950s, grew slowly over the years to be a small regional chain of 16

speciality department store A junior department store in North America is a type of retailer that experienced growth from the late 1930s through the 1960s, but is no longer common today, as retail moved increasingly towards discount stores like Walmart and Target, and big box ...

s across

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...

at the time of its closure in 1990. Over the years, the stores gained a reputation as the “Grand Dame” of department stores in the area. The stores’ interiors were known for large chandeliers and other upscale touches. The chain marketed itself as “Buffums Specialty Store,” in an attempt to differentiate itself from other local chains, including

The Broadway The Broadway was a mid-level department store chain headquartered in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1896 by English-born Arthur Letts Sr., and named after what was once the city's main shopping street, the Broadway became a dominant reta ...

and

Bullock's Bullock's was a chain of full-line department stores from 1907 through 1995, headquartered in Los Angeles, growing to operate across California, Arizona and Nevada. Bullock's also operated as many as seven more upscale Bullocks Wilshire specialty ...

, and the national stores such as May Co. and Robinson’s. Its most famous advertising line, “I’ve been to Buffums,” was used in newspaper and television advertisements during the 1970s and '80s. It was also known for its “Bag-A-Bargain” promotion that placed actual shopping bags (printed with a discount offer) in local newspapers. Like other local department stores of the era, Buffums was challenged by old-fashioned business models, changing consumer tastes, and the arrival of Seattle-based retailer Nordstrom. The chain was bought in the 1970s by the Australian-based

David Jones Ltd David Jones Pty Limited, trading as David Jones (colloquially DJs), is an Australian High-End department stores, department store, owned since 2014 by South African retail group Woolworths (South Africa), Woolworths Holdings Limited. David Jones ...

, which looked to sell the struggling chain in the 1980s. By the time of the sale it had become part of

Adelaide Steamship The Adelaide Steamship Company was an Australian shipping company and later a diversified industrial and logistics conglomerate. It was formed by a group of South Australian businessmen in 1875. Their aim was to control the transport of goods b ...

, an Australian conglomerate, who never found a buyer. In a last-ditch effort to modernize, Buffums installed new IBM

point-of-sale The point of sale (POS) or point of purchase (POP) is the time and place at which a retail transaction is completed. At the point of sale, the merchant calculates the amount owed by the customer, indicates that amount, may prepare an invoice f ...

registers in all stores in 1990 (to complement their data center's newly purchased IBM AS/400, IBM's then-new midrange computer), only to enter liquidation following the 1990 Christmas shopping season.

Stores

Flagship

Buffums' Downtown flagship grew as follows: The predecessor of Buffums, Wm. Schilling & Sons dry goods store opened in 1892 at the corner of 2nd and Pine in Long Beach. By 1902 they were located at the Stafford Block, 127–129 Pine Ave., and described as a "commodious", "department store", "embracing a complete line of dress goods ladies and gents furnishings, clothing, shoes, hats and caps, blankets, comforts, etc.". That same year the father William retired and the firm became Schilling Bros. In 1904, a partnership bought the Schilling Bros. business for $65,000; the partners were Charles A. and Edwin E. Buffum arrived from Illinois, and local businessmen S. Townsend, W. L. Porterneld and C. J. Walter. The company started operating as The Mercantile Co. The 127–9 Pine Ave. Schilling Bros. store, several doors south of Broadway, would eventually become the men's shoe store of the future Buffums flagship store. The next year, the Mercantile Co. announced the purchase of a lot on the southwest corner of Pine and Broadway, 74.5 ft. by 150 ft. ( with the intention of building a five-story building on it. However, the building would only be three stories and was completed in 1912. * 1924: added a new six-story building; the “New Buffums’” opened in stages in early May, 1924 * 1941: built the "Autoport"

parking garage A multistorey car park (British and Singapore English) or parking garage (American English), also called a multistory, parking building, parking structure, parkade (mainly Canadian), parking ramp, parking deck or indoor parking, is a build ...

(still standing) * 1960: added a Varsity Shop, Red Cross Shoe Store, and four-story parking garage * 1964: added 14,000 sq. ft., expanded to occupy the full block of Broadway between Pine and Pacific, for a total of of floor space in the Downtown flagship complex. The new space housed a full Interior Design and Home Furnishings area as a "Sportsman's Shop". The store competed downtown with smaller, local Long Beach department stores like Marti and Wise Cos. as well as Sears and Ward's, all of which opened large new stores downtown in 1928-9. In the early 1950s Lakewood Center would provide competition with

May Company California May Company California was a chain of department stores operating in Southern California and Nevada, with headquarters in North Hollywood, California. It was a subsidiary of May Department Stores and merged with May's other Southern California s ...

and Los Altos Center, with

for the suburban shopper. The complex was sold in 1981 and was demolished in 1985 to create office space (as of 2020 a WeWork, and Buffums moved its Long Beach store operation and headquarters to the nearby Long Beach Plaza mall when it opened in 1982.

Branches

When Buffums was liquidated it had 16 locations:

Relaunch

A California investor group filed Buffums' Stores, LLC. with the California Secretary of State in January 2015. According to the buffumstores Facebook site, they re-launched in a small specialty format in October 2015, located in the Belmont Shore area of Long Beach, CA. This reappearance of the Buffums name in retail was short-lived, however, as the former principals of Buffums Stores, Inc. moved their operations to Naples, FL, opening their store there under the name The b.Store, and shuttering the Belmont Shore 2nd street Buffums storefront in March 2016.

References

{{History of Retail in Southern California Defunct department stores based in Greater Los Angeles History of Los Angeles History of Long Beach, California Companies based in Long Beach, California American companies established in 1904 Retail companies established in 1904 Retail companies disestablished in 1991 1904 establishments in California 1991 disestablishments in California Defunct companies based in Greater Los Angeles

Stores

Flagship

Branches

Relaunch

See also

References