Ask Vance: Bry’s Department Store

Mar 29, 2023

Our history expert solves local mysteries: who, what, when, where, why, and why not. Well, sometimes.

by Vance Lauderdale

May 29, 2023

8:00 AM

photograph courtesy vance lauderdale

Along with Goldsmith's, Lowenstein's, and John Gerber, Bry's was one of the "Big Four" department stores Downtown, all of them on Main Street. But the others didn't sell airplanes.

Dear R.L.: Shoppers had their choice of four major department stores on Main Street in the early 1900s. Goldsmith's bragged that it was "Memphis’ Greatest Store" and just blocks away were Lowenstein's and John Gerber. The fourth store was Bry's — pronounced "breeze" — at Main and Jefferson. It was the only Downtown department store that not only offered the usual selection of clothing and accessories, but also groceries, appliances, hardware, automobile parts, and airplanes.

Yes, I said airplanes.

The old photos you see here, presumably taken by an insurance company in the mid-1930s, show the impressive front entrance as well as a rather cluttery rear entrance at Front and Jefferson where shoppers would find the Food Market, offering groceries and meats. Note the painted signs, proclaiming, "WE WILL NOT BE UNDERSOLD" and "YOU MUST BE SATISFIED OR YOUR MONEY BACK." Is this the place you remember, R.L.?

As you can tell from the images, the Bry-Block Mercantile Company, which was its official name, despite what all the ads and signs said, was a rambling establishment, sharing the block at Main and Adams with the Claridge Hotel.

The business started in 1902, when three businessmen — I.D. "Ike" Block and brothers Nathan and Louis Bry — opened a small dry-goods store at the southeast corner of Main and Adams. In 1905, they moved across the street into the Appeal Building at Main and Jefferson, so-named because it had previously housed the Memphis Appeal newspaper.

photograph courtesy vance lauderdale

The Front Street entrance to Bry's welcomed customers to the Food Market, where they were promised, "You must be satisfied or your money back."

And what a store it was! Roaming through the Lauderdale Library, I came across a June 1933 bound volume of the Memphis Press-Scimitar that was just packed with Bry's ads. I’ll wait here while you fetch your copy, and we can read along.

The annual "Memphis Day" sale described more than 200 items, with "drastically reduced prices" ranging from 17-cent "men's Swiss-ribbed cotton knit shirts" to "a complete showing of all that's new in smart footwear" that included 800 pairs of women's "Klever-Mode fall shoes" for just $3.60.

In this world of smartphones and artificial intelligence, the copywriters of the day were determined to point out the brainpower of the merchandise. Bry's sold "smartly made pajamas" (66 cents) and "women's smart new undies" ($1.59). If it wasn't smart, it was clever in other ways: "cunning chinchilla coat sets" ($7.98) and even "cunning medium-size baby dolls" ($1.59).

Frankly, I would never want a doll that was cunning. That just seems like something you’d encounter in The Twilight Zone.

In 1927, Bry's announced the opening of "the first department store airplane department in the South" and displayed a model called the Alexander Eagle Rock on the second floor. Newspaper ads didn't give the price (or explain how customers would get the plane out of the store) but urged everyone to "Follow the Airline from the Men's Department to the Airplane Department!"

But Bry's offered just about everything else you could possibly desire: "famous Southern Flyer bicycles" ($27.88), "well-constructed single-barrel guns" ($5.88), Colonial Compact radios ("the newest sensation!" — $17.50), and White electric console sewing machines ($57.50).

The sporting goods department sold Spalding golf clubs, Narragansett tennis rackets, Louisville Slugger bats, Shakespeare automatic fishing reels … the list goes on and on. I was especially pleased that customers could purchase "Dazzy Vance" baseball gloves — a bargain at $8.50. I don't recall endorsing this product, but if it meant money in the Lauderdale coffers, I didn't mind.

photograph courtesy vance lauderdale

This view shows the Jefferson Avenue entrance to the store. The same view today shows a modern parking garage.

Their complete garden department offered boxwoods for 39 cents, Japanese hollies for 49 cents, and nandina bushes for 79 cents, along with tulips, hyacinths, and even fresh-cut roses ($1 for a dozen).

The "South's Largest and Most Complete Optical Department" provided "Comfort-Frame eyeglasses ($4.85), the Winner Frame ("strong, attractive, and becoming") for $3.85, and "the finest double-vision lenses ever made, starting at $6.50."

Bry's jewelry department was a showcase for everything from $9.45 wristwatches to considerably more luxurious items, such as a one-carat blue-white diamond ring in a platinum setting for $229.50 — an astonishing sum in those days.

For more domestic needs, how about a new gas range, coal-burning stove, or gas heater? Customers would find those at Bry's, along with electric irons, heating pads, chicken fryers, sandwich toasters, and even something called an Enterprise Coal Circulator, complete with "walnut-porcelain finish and floorboard," for $26.50.

In the automobile department, Bry's didn't actually sell cars, but they offered parts for them, including Kelly tires in all sizes, batteries, "famous A.C. sparkplugs," gallon cans of Penn-Champ motor oil, and so much more.

And how about the selection in the Bry's Food Market? Looking through that 1933 Press-Scimitar, I found myself wanting a time machine for my grocery shopping. Consider this selection (and the prices) from a weekend advertisement: a pound of cabbage for 3 cents, a pound of home-grown spinach for a nickel; a dozen eggs, a dozen oranges, a can of peas, or a pound of Wisconsin cheese for a dime; and a pound of ham or lamb for precisely 17-and-one-half-cents. Pork shoulders, salt meat, veal chops, liver, or ground beef sold for only 5 cents a pound. Finish up that meal with a chocolate angel food cake for a dime.

You could easily buy a day's worth of food for less than a dollar in 1933. Of course, let's keep things in perspective. Today, thanks to inflation, your one-dollar meal would cost more than $24! And that $229 diamond ring mentioned earlier, already expensive in the 1930s, would set you back more than $5,000 — almost a day's wages for a Lauderdale.

Okay, so Bry's wasn't always a bargain, but they offered items that customers would never find at Goldsmith's or Lowenstein's. They might walk out of those stores with shopping bags stuffed with nice clothing, but they wouldn't be wheeling carts stacked with car tires or gas stoves.

And yes, they sold airplanes.

For that matter, Bry's had its own airport. City maps from the late 1920s show a single-runway "Bry's Airport" located on the west side of Warford, just north of Jackson. In his Memphis Sketches, historian Paul Coppock noted that the 65-acre "aviation unit was financed and operated by H.T. Dawkins, who operated the Bry's department that sold automobile supplies and tires. He incorporated the Tri-State Aviation Corporation, the dealer for Stinson, Travelair, and Eagle Rock planes."

Unfortunately, the airport didn't last long. According to Coppock, "It opened while thousands watched on May 8, 1927. It was closed on April Fool's Day of 1932 by a windstorm that destroyed the hangar and damaged six planes." It never reopened, because by this time construction was underway on the much larger Memphis Municipal Airport on Winchester Road.

By the way, I have to tell you that anyone — anyone like me, I mean — could get confused researching this store because sometimes newspapers called it Bry's and then "New Bry's." Were these two different stores? Well, no.

In 1926, the company announced a complete remodeling and reorganization. This was a major event for Memphis shoppers. On the morning of April 8th, The Commercial Appeal reported, "Mrs. Eldran Rogers, president of the Parent-Teacher Association, turned a golden key at the main entrance to open the new store." This was followed by "nine Girl Scouts [who] raised the curtains shrouding the windows of the store, which have been specially prepared for the opening sale."

After that, most ads called the store "New Bry's" — even though the owners never bothered to change the signs outside. Whether you called it Bry's or New Bry's, the establishment certainly offered unique services. John Mench, president of the company, told reporters, "Our policy is what you want, when you want it, and always at fair prices." And if you wanted it, but didn't have time or energy to visit the store, Bry's offered personal shoppers.

"If a customer finds it impossible to come to New Bry's," said Mench, "all that is necessary is to telephone our personal shopper and give her your order and instructions. She will spend her entire time attending to your wishes, and will see that it is promptly delivered."

Bry's offered a wonderful shopping experience, but places like Sears lured away customers searching for appliances and auto parts, and they never opened other locations away from Downtown. In 1956 Lowenstein's purchased the old building, keeping the Bry's name on it, but finally demolishing it a few years later to make way for an ultra-modern store on Main Street, topped with an apartment tower. That store closed in 1981, though the apartments have survived. Nothing remains of the big store you see here, and — here's the worst part — I don't get a penny any more from the sales of "Dazzy Vance" baseball gloves.

Email: [email protected]

Mail: Vance Lauderdale, Memphis Magazine, P.O. Box 1738, Memphis, TN 38101

Online: memphismagazine.com/ask-vance

Or visit him on Facebook.

Vance Lauderdale is the history columnist for Memphis magazine and Inside Memphis Business. His dramatic life story is so well-known that schoolchildren are taught to recite it for extra credit.

May 29, 2023

8:00 AM