McAlpin's was a

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

-based

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 ...

founded in 1852 as Ellis, McAlpin & Co. McAlpin's opened their landmark downtown location on Fourth Street in 1880. In 1954, McAlpin's became the first Cincinnati department store to open a suburban site, in the

Western Hills Shopping Center Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

. Two decades later, McAlpin's became a division of

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 ...

. In 1990, Mercantile moved their corporate headquarters to

Fairfield, Ohio Fairfield is a suburban city located in both Butler and Hamilton counties in the U.S. state of Ohio. Fairfield is located approximately 25 miles north of Cincinnati and is situated on the east bank of the Great Miami River. The population ...

, a suburb of Cincinnati. As retail companies consolidated, McAlpin's remained roughly the same. That ended in 1998 when McAlpin's parent company, Mercantile, was bought by

Little Rock, Arkansas (The Little Rock, The "Little Rock") , government_type = council-manager government, Council-manager , leader_title = List of mayors of Little Rock, Arkansas, Mayor , leader_name = Frank Scott Jr. , leader_ ...

based

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 ...

. All McAlpin's stores were subsequently converted to the Dillard's name that year except for the one in

Dayton Mall Dayton Mall is a shopping mall in Miami Township, Montgomery County, Ohio, United States, a suburb of Dayton. The mall's anchor stores are Dick's Sporting Goods, DSW, Guitar Center, H&M, JCPenney, Kirkland's, LensCrafters, Macy's, Morris Home Fu ...

, which was instead sold to

Elder-Beerman The Elder-Beerman Stores Corp., commonly known as Elder-Beerman, was an American chain of department stores founded in 1883 and whose last stores closed in 2018. The chain, based primarily in the Midwestern United States, was composed of 31 stor ...

. The landmark

Downtown Cincinnati Downtown Cincinnati is the central business district of Cincinnati, Ohio, as well the economic and symbiotic center of the Cincinnati metropolitan area. It also contains a number of urban neighborhoods in the low land area between the Ohio ...

store closed its doors in 1996. It was restored and reopened as The McAlpin, a 62-unit luxury condominium building.

References

* Retail companies established in 1852 Defunct department stores based in Cincinnati Butler County, Ohio Retail companies disestablished in 1998 1852 establishments in Ohio 1998 disestablishments in Ohio {{US-retail-company-stub