The Denver Dry Goods Company, also known as "The Denver", is a defunct department store which was established in

Denver, Colorado Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

, USA, in 1879 by Michael J. McNamara and L.H. Flanders as M.J. McNamara & Company and later The McNamara Dry Goods Company. The beginnings of the company can be traced back to 1876 when they had both worked as clerks at another dry goods store in Denver. In 1877, McNamara left that store and formed a partnership with Edgar H. Drew. After two years, Drew left and L. H. Flanders came in as co-owner. In 1893, McNamara turned the store's ownership over to Dennis Sheedy and Charles Kountz and, in 1894, the company was reorganized under the name, "Denver Dry Goods Company". For a while, it was claimed to be the largest

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 ...

west of

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. A description on one postcard from 1916 read, "The Largest Store in the Central West, 400 Feet long-Seven Acres Floor Area, 1,200 Employees, A $2,500,000 Stock, 15th to 16th on California Street Denver Colorado." The Denver Dry Goods Company later became part of Associated Dry Goods (ADG) and, in the 1970s and early 1980s, it was considered one of ADG's most profitable operating units, just behind

Lord and Taylor Lord & Taylor was the oldest brick and mortar department store in the United States, in business from 1826 to 2020. The brand was purchased during former owner Le Tote's 2020 liquidation bankruptcy and relaunched by new owner, Saadia Group, as ...

.Annual Reports of the Associated Dry Goods Corporation (ADG), 1979, 1982, 1983, 1984. ADG invested in expanding The Denver, both with suburban stores in the greater Denver market and stores in far-flung locales such as

Billings, Montana Billings is the largest city in the U.S. state of Montana, with a population of 117,116 as of the 2020 census. Located in the south-central portion of the state, it is the seat of Yellowstone County and the principal city of the Billings Metrop ...

. Also under ADG, the downtown Denver store was renovated. Many Colorado residents fondly recall the store.s motto, "Where Colorado Shops With Confidence". The store was acquired by May Company as part of

Associated Dry Goods Corp. Associated Dry Goods Corporation (ADG) was a chain of department stores that merged with May Department Stores in 1986. It was founded in 1916 as an association of independent stores called American Dry Goods, based in New York City. History T ...

in 1986 (which had acquired it in 1966). Nine of the 12 locations were shut down and sold off and the remaining three units were converted to

May-Daniels & Fisher May-Daniels & Fisher (commonly known, and doing business as "May-D&F," in later years without the hyphen) was a Denver, Colorado department store created in 1957 when the original May Company operations in Colorado, founded by David May in 1877 ...

stores in 1987. The original downtown store was built in 1889 and was expanded in 1898, 1906 and 1924. It was converted to apartments in 1994. There were four additional closed units in Greeley, Billings and Lakeside and a short-lived free standing cosmetics store in Beau Monde (Denver Tech Center).

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