Lion Store

The Lion Dry Goods Co.

Company type	Department store
Industry	Retail
Founded	1857
Defunct	1999 (Ceased operation as a legal entity in 2006)
Fate	Merged with Dillard's through Mercantile Stores
Successor	Dillard's
Headquarters	Toledo, Ohio
Products	Clothing, footwear, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, and housewares.
Parent	Mercantile Stores Company, Inc.
Website	www.dillards.com

Lion Store (founded in 1857 as Frederick Eaton & Co. and incorporated in 1890 as The Lion Dry Goods Co.) was a Toledo, Ohio department store chain. Mercantile Stores operated the chain from 1914 until its 1998 acquisition by Dillard's, which retired the Lion nameplate in 1999.

Originally established as a downtown-based dry goods retailer, Lion evolved during the post-war period, establishing new stores during Toledo's suburbanization and closing the downtown store in 1980 amid urban decay. By 1998, the chain comprised three fashion apparel stores and two home furnishing stores in area shopping malls targeting middle to upper-middle income consumers.

Long a dominant Toledo retailer, Lion held an estimated thirty to forty percent market share in 1998. The store influenced the growth of Toledo's retail environment, with developers acknowledging that their projects hinged on whether Lion would become an anchor tenant. Lion's outsized influence on local consumers prompted one local retail executive to jokingly remark that "people born in Toledo are born with two things: a Social Security card and a Lion credit card."

History

Early years

In the mid 19th century, New Englander Frederick Eaton opened up a dry goods store in Toledo. The store made $15,000 in its first year of business, prompting the store, then known as Frederick Eaton & Company to move to a larger location in downtown Toledo. Between 1859 and 1865, Eaton purchased two life-size cast-iron lions and placed them outside the doors of his store. The store's customers began referring to the store as "The Lion Store." The store made a move to its final downtown location in 1866, where the lions followed. The Lion Store became part of H.B. Claflin & Company upon the 1890 death of Eaton. Subsequently, the store was acquired by the Mercantile Stores group.

Post-war expansion

The company opened up a store in the Westgate Village Shopping Center in 1957, which would, by the 1990s, become a home store, and briefly a Dillard's Home Store before its closure. Another store was opened at Southwyck Shopping Center in 1972. A second Home Store also opened at Southwyck following the close of the Lamsons store there. Both the Southwyck stores closed in the early-to-mid first decade of the 21st century, after brief conversions to Dillard's stores. The downtown store closed in the early 1980s.

Later years and Dillard's acquisition

In the mid-1980s, Lion Store opened a location at North Towne Square in North Toledo, which was closed in the late 1990s after a brief period as a Dillard's store. In 1993, a store was opened at Franklin Park Mall, which serves under the Dillard's name as the only functioning descendant of the Lion Store today. It is at the Franklin Park Dillard's location where one can see the lion statues, who preside in the store's main atrium.

Gallery

• 
  Main floor, Lion Store, Downtown Toledo, 1900s
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  Second floor, millinery department, Lion Store, Downtown Toledo, 1900s
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  Third floor, drapery department, Lion Store, Downtown Toledo, 1900s
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  Window Display at the Lion Store, Downtown Toledo, approximately 1915
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  St. Clair and Adams streets with Lion Store at right, undated
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  Lion Store postcard advertisement for umbrellas (front), 1908
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  Lion Store postcard advertisement for umbrellas (reverse), 1908
• 
  Lion Store employee picnic, approximately 1920
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  Lion Store in Downtown Toledo, 1935
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  Lion Store entrance with statue lions at right, 1935
• 
  Lion Store at North Towne Square, 1998

References

• The Grand Emporiums, Scarborough House, Hendrickson, 1979.