Lion Store (founded in 1857 as Frederick Eaton & Co. and incorporated in 1890 as The Lion Dry Goods Co.) was a

Toledo, Ohio Toledo ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Lucas County, Ohio, United States. A major Midwestern United States port city, Toledo is the fourth-most populous city in the state of Ohio, after Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati, and according ...

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 ...

chain.

Mercantile Stores Mercantile Stores Company Inc. until 1998, was a traditional department store retailer operating 102 fashion apparel stores and 16 home fashion stores in 17 states. The stores were operated under 13 different nameplates and varied in size, with t ...

operated the chain from 1914 until its 1998 acquisition by

Dillard's Dillard's, Inc. is an upscale American department store chain with approximately 282 stores in 29 states and headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas. Currently, the largest number of stores are located in Texas with 57 and Florida with 42. The ...

, which retired the Lion nameplate in 1999. Originally established as a downtown-based

dry goods Dry goods is a historic term describing the type of product line a store carries, which differs by region. The term comes from the textile trade, and the shops appear to have spread with the mercantile trade across the British Empire (and forme ...

retailer, Lion evolved during the

post-war In Western usage, the phrase post-war era (or postwar era) usually refers to the time since the end of World War II. More broadly, a post-war period (or postwar period) is the interval immediately following the end of a war. A post-war period c ...

period, establishing new stores during Toledo's

suburbanization Suburbanization is a population shift from central urban areas into suburbs, resulting in the formation of (sub)urban sprawl. As a consequence of the movement of households and businesses out of the city centers, low-density, peripheral urba ...

and closing the downtown store in 1980 amid

urban decay Urban decay (also known as urban rot, urban death or urban blight) is the sociological process by which a previously functioning city, or part of a city, falls into disrepair and decrepitude. There is no single process that leads to urban deca ...

. By 1998, the chain comprised three fashion apparel stores and two home furnishing stores in area

shopping malls A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a North American term for a large indoor shopping center, usually anchored by department stores. The term "mall" originally meant a pedestrian promenade with shops along it (that is, the term was used to refe ...

targeting middle to upper-middle income consumers. Long a dominant Toledo retailer, Lion held an estimated thirty to forty percent market share in 1998. The store influenced the growth of Toledo's retail environment, with developers acknowledging that their projects hinged on whether Lion would become an

anchor tenant In retail, an "anchor tenant", sometimes called an "anchor store", "draw tenant", or "key tenant", is a considerably larger tenant in a shopping mall, often a department store or retail chain. They are typically located at the ends of malls. Wit ...

. Lion's outsized influence on local consumers prompted one local retail executive to jokingly remark that "people born in Toledo are born with two things: a Social Security card and a Lion credit card."

History

Early years

In the mid 19th century, New Englander Frederick Eaton opened up a

store in Toledo. The store made $15,000 in its first year of business, prompting the store, then known as Frederick Eaton & Company to move to a larger location in downtown Toledo. Between 1859 and 1865, Eaton purchased two life-size cast-iron lions and placed them outside the doors of his store. The store's customers began referring to the store as "The Lion Store." The store made a move to its final downtown location in 1866, where the lions followed. The Lion Store became part of H.B. Claflin & Company upon the 1890 death of Eaton. Subsequently, the store was acquired by the Mercantile Stores group.

Post-war expansion

The company opened up a store in the Westgate Village Shopping Center in 1957, which would, by the 1990s, become a home store, and briefly a Dillard's Home Store before its closure. Another store was opened at Southwyck Shopping Center in 1972. A second Home Store also opened at Southwyck following the close of the Lamsons store there. Both the Southwyck stores closed in the early-to-mid first decade of the 21st century, after brief conversions to Dillard's stores. The downtown store closed in the early 1980s.

Later years and Dillard's acquisition

In the mid-1980s, Lion Store opened a location at North Towne Square in North Toledo, which was closed in the late 1990s after a brief period as a Dillard's store. In 1993, a store was opened at

Franklin Park Mall Franklin Park Mall is a shopping mall in Toledo, Ohio. The anchor stores are Dillard's, Macy's, Dick's Sporting Goods, Forever 21, DSW, and JCPenney. History Developed by The Rouse Company, the mall opened on July 22, 1971, occupying the forme ...

, which serves under the Dillard's name as the only functioning descendant of the Lion Store today. It is at the Franklin Park Dillard's location where one can see the lion statues, who preside in the store's main

atrium Atrium may refer to: Anatomy * Atrium (heart), an anatomical structure of the heart * Atrium, the genital structure next to the genital aperture in the reproductive system of gastropods * Atrium of the ventricular system of the brain * Pulmona ...

Gallery

File:Main floor, Summit St. -- The Lion Store, Toledo, O. - DPLA - bbbcd8cc78385912ee1dbceaba4ef9a6 (page 1) (cropped).jpg, Main floor, Lion Store, Downtown Toledo, 1900s File:Millinery Deaprtment, second floor, Summit St.; The Lion Store, Toledo, O. - DPLA - b299683c9a281410af279a3384bdb23a (page 1) (cropped).jpg, Second floor, millinery department, Lion Store, Downtown Toledo, 1900s File:Drapery Department, third floor, Summit St.; The Lion Store, Toledo, O. - DPLA - c847a3424e1722976fc5826d46fa8255 (page 1).jpg, Third floor, drapery department, Lion Store, Downtown Toledo, 1900s File:Window diplay at the Lion Store, Toledo, Ohio - DPLA - 6892d78e6d4946ad26d765630179f67d.jpg, Window Display at the Lion Store, Downtown Toledo, approximately 1915 File:Adams Street (aerial view), Toledo, Ohio.jpg, St. Clair and Adams streets with Lion Store at right, undated File:The Lion Store, Umbrellas. - DPLA - 98f44cfff9aecc2d8c2899b0da0d3234 (page 1).jpg, Lion Store postcard advertisement for umbrellas (front), 1908 File:The Lion Store, Umbrellas. - DPLA - 98f44cfff9aecc2d8c2899b0da0d3234 (page 2).jpg, Lion Store postcard advertisement for umbrellas (reverse), 1908 File:Lion Store employee picnic - DPLA - 7b54d3835e4a5afa860a0209f9f46fc8.jpg, Lion Store employee picnic, approximately 1920 File:Block Card 329-331 Summit Street - DPLA - 66d1236c301ee524067d4bfae8b51787.jpg, Lion Store in Downtown Toledo, 1935 File:Block Card 329-331 Summit Street - DPLA - 96bab8f153b4aa2f05953f12458eabbc.jpg, Lion Store entrance with statue lions at right, 1935 File:Lion - North Towne - 1998.jpg, Lion Store at North Towne Square, 1998

References

*The Grand Emporiums, Scarborough House, Hendrickson, 1979. {{Toledo Companies based in Toledo, Ohio Defunct department stores based in Toledo, Ohio Retail companies disestablished in 1998 Defunct companies based in Ohio