The Leader Store at 141-5 N. Main St. is shown sometime after 1921. The store, founded by Gus Holstine in 1905, continued its growth even after a disastrous 1920 fire, including the addition of a third floor. The downtown Leader store closed in 1972.
Lima merchant Gus Holstine had a forgettable autumn in 1920. In quick succession, he fractured two ribs, contracted pneumonia “and to cap the climax developed a serious attack of appendicitis, which resulted in an operation, his life in the balance for five days,” the Lima Republican-Gazette reported November 21, 1920.
The previous summer hadn’t ended well, either. “A tangle of fallen timbers and water-soaked materials was all that was left of the first floor of the Leader store, North Main Street, Sunday afternoon after fire of undetermined origin had been fought continuously for 12 hours,” the Lima Republican-Gazette reported September 14, 1920, two days after the fire. “Damage was estimated at $300,000. Ninety percent of the damage is covered by insurance. Thousands watched practically all the firefighting equipment of the city in action.”
Holstine had founded the store 15 summers earlier in a 25-by-50-foot business space at 141 N. Main St. formerly occupied by a five-and-dime store. Holstine named his store the Leader because, he would later recall, “I had in mind that Lima should have a coming store with a name that would stand out and look forward …” By 1920, the store had grown outward and upward and undergone an extensive remodeling.
On September 12, 1920, after what was at the time one of the worst fires in the city’s history, it was in ruins, and the all-important holiday shopping season was on the horizon.
“When the flames had been extinguished curious throngs struggled to gain entrance to the building,” the Republican-Gazette wrote. “They saw water ten feet deep in the basement of the building. On the surface floated splintered wood, expensive silk and woolens, thousands of dollars of furs, Christmas novelties, and hundreds of articles soaked and burned beyond recognition.”
Holstine saw opportunity. He vowed to keep his sales force together and reopen as soon as possible. On September 26, he told the Republican-Gazette that undamaged goods from the stores upper floors would be liquidated at a fire sale.
Although the store was still in the process of being repaired and remodeled – with the heavily damaged basement weeks away from completion – the sale was held October 27. It was a success.
“With such crowds that it was necessary to lock the doors to keep the people from jamming the store, the fire, water and smoke sale being conducted at the Leader Store proved one of the greatest attractions ever staged in Lima in the nature of a sale,” the Lima News wrote October 28. “Before the doors opened at 7:30 Wednesday morning, more than 300 people were waiting to be admitted. When the doors were thrown open, the store was filled in 15 minutes until it was necessary to lock the doors for over an hour until the several hundred people in the store had been waited upon. This process of locking the doors was found necessary through the entire day, the door being merely opened long enough to allow the store to fill.”
By the end of November, the Leader was ready for Christmas, touting the opening of the basement for toy sales with an ad in the Republican-Gazette. “Right now will find the Leader Store ready for Christmas. No less a person than Santa Claus will have opened it. Santa waited a few more day days later than his scheduled time owing to the Leader Store fire and when the time was ready made a flying trip to the Leader Store and again returned to his Toy Factory at the North Pole.”
The Leader store would continue its rise from the ashes of the 1920 fire. In the following years, Holstine purchased the old city building in the 100 block of West High Street and expanded into the space while also adding a fourth floor and modernizing the façade of the store, which now had entrances on both North Main and West High streets. The downtown store closed in 1972. A second Leader store location at the Lima Mall, which was opened in the mid-1960s, was sold to Elder-Beerman in 1974.
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SOURCE
This feature is a cooperative effort between the newspaper and the Allen County Museum and Historical Society.
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See past Reminisce stories at limaohio.com/tag/reminisce
Reach Greg Hoersten at [email protected].
