Porteous, Mitchell & Braun Co., or simply Porteous, was a mid-market

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 ...

based in

Portland, Maine Portland is the largest city in the U.S. state of Maine and the seat of Cumberland County. Portland's population was 68,408 in April 2020. The Greater Portland metropolitan area is home to over half a million people, the 104th-largest metropo ...

Flagship store

At the time the store was opened in 1904 it was the largest department store based in

Maine Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and ...

. It became the flagship location and headquarters of Porteous, located on Congress Street in downtown Portland. After the company closed the store at this location, it was used for warehouse sales. Today the flagship location has been restored and is home to

Maine College of Art Maine College of Art & Design (MECA&D) is a private art school in Portland, Maine. Founded in 1882, Maine College of Art & Design is the oldest arts educational institution in Maine. Roughly 32% of MECA&D students are from Maine. The college is a ...

Expanded locations

Porteous expanded and opened branch locations in Maine,

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the nor ...

, and Vermont. The first branch took over another store that had ceased operations. In Newington NH, Porteous opened in the Newington Mall (now The Crossings at Fox Run) in a location formerly occupied by Sutherland's, the only branch store of a Lawrence MA-based department store that ceased operations in 1976. Other Porteous branches were opened in new shopping malls that opened in the late 1970s and early 1980s including the Auburn Mall in Auburn, ME (1979),

Bangor Mall Bangor Mall is a shopping mall in Bangor, Maine, United States. Located off the Stillwater Avenue exit on Interstate 95, it serves as a shopping center for the surrounding Bangor area. Current stores include JCPenney and Dick's Sporting Goods ...

in Bangor, ME (1978), Burlington Square Mall (now Burlington Town Center) in Downtown Burlington, VT and the

Aroostook Centre Mall Aroostook Centre Mall is a shopping mall in Presque Isle, Maine, USA. It opened on November 1, 1993. Shortly after its opening, the U.S. government announced the closing of nearby Loring Air Force Base, the region's largest employer. The mall ...

in Presque Isle, ME (1993). The former W.T. Grant store in Cooks Corner Shopping Center in Brunswick ME had been taken over by

JC Penney Penney OpCo LLC, doing business as JCPenney and often abbreviated JCP, is a midscale American department store chain operating 667 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. Departments inside JCPenney stores include Mens, Womens, Boys, Gir ...

, but was subsequently closed when the JC Penney store opened at the expanded Maine Mall in South Portland in 1983. Porteous not only opened in

The Maine Mall The Maine Mall is an enclosed shopping mall in South Portland, Maine, United States. Owned and managed by Brookfield Properties, it is the largest shopping mall in the state of Maine, and the second-largest in northern New England, behind New Hamp ...

at this time but also took over the Cooks Corner location. The downtown Portland flagship store closed not long after the Maine Mall store opened.

Decline and shutdown

Owned by the

Dunlaps Dunlaps, based in Fort Worth, Texas, USA, was a family-owned chain of department stores in the central and southern United States catering to most classes depending on the location. The chain operated under the trade names of Dunlaps, Stripling & ...

Store chain based in Texas in its last years (starting around 1993), and operated as "PMB, Inc.--a Division of Dunlaps", the chain found itself flustered with new competition as many regional and national chains started to open units in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont communities where Porteous previously had carved out its niche in the mid-market department store business. The chain started to shut down in the mid-1990s, closing its Newington NH, and South Portland ME stores, and was completely shuttered by 2003 when its last store in Presque Isle closed."Presque Isle Porteous store to close in October," ''Bangor Daily News,'' August 28, 2003.

References

{{reflist Defunct department stores based in Maine Retail companies disestablished in 2003 Retail companies established in 1904