
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 under one roof, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store mad ...
s, headquartered in
Long Beach, California
Long Beach is a coastal city in southeastern Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is the list of United States cities by population, 44th-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 451,307 as of 2022. A charter ci ...
. The Buffums chain began in 1904, when two brothers from
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...
,
Charles
Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English language, English and French language, French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic, Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''* ...
and Edwin 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 stores across
Southern California
Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural List of regions of California, region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its densely populated coastal reg ...
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 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 specialt ...
, 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, which looked to sell the struggling chain in the 1980s. By the time of the sale it had become part of
Adelaide Steamship Company
The Adelaide Steamship Company was an Australian shipping company, 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 be ...
, 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
The IBM AS/400 (Application System/400) is a family of midrange computers from IBM announced in June 1988 and released in August 1988. It was the successor to the System/36 and System/38 platforms, and ran the OS/400 operating system. Lower-cost b ...
, 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 Avenue, 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 $65,000 (~$ in ); the partners were
Charles
Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English language, English and French language, French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic, Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''* ...
and Edwin 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 127–129 Pine Avenue 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 (Commonwealth English) or parking garage (American English), also called a multistorey, parking building, parking structure, parkade (Canadian), parking ramp, parking deck, or indoor parking, is a building designed fo ...
(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 well 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 an American department store chain founded in 1881 as A. Hamburger & Sons by Asher Hamburger. It was renamed after its acquisition by The May Department Stores Company in 1923. Its flagship store and headquarters wer ...
and Los Altos Center, with The Broadway for the suburban shopper.
The complex was sold in 1981 and was demolished in 1985 to create office space (as of 2020 a WeWork
WeWork Inc., headquartered in New York City, is a provider of coworking spaces, including physical and virtual shared spaces, in approximately 600 buildings in 125 cities.
WeWork was founded in 2010 by Adam Neumann and Miguel McKelvey. Ove ...
,) 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 neighborhood of Long Beach. 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 , and shuttering the Belmont Shore 2nd street Buffums storefront in March 2016.
See also
* Dorothy Buffum Chandler
References
{{History of Retail in Southern California
Defunct department stores based in Long Beach, California
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
Lists of department store branches by company