Wednesday, January 16, 2013

History of Kline's - Part 6

March 5, 1975 ad
Although it was announced on January 28, 1975 that Kline's Department Store would close in 90 days, it didn't stay open quite that long.

The day after the announcement, the store ran an ad in the newspaper announcing its once-a-year spectacular "Good Old Fashioned Bargain Bee Event," with no mention of the store closing in its ad. But by the beginning of March, the store was advertising savings of up to 80% on remaining merchandise.

Finally, on March 10, a letter from Edward Kline to the people of Lorain (below) appeared in the Journal.


And on March 14, 1975, Lorain's Kline's store closed for good. It was indeed the end of an era. That same day, the below ad ran in the paper.

Downtown Lorain would never be the same.

The closed store in the 1970s

2 comments:

Ken said...

The boom and decline of Kline's kind of mirrors that of Lorain. But even down here in Texas, downtowns are almost a thing of the past. You can drive through many a small town down here, with the most picturesque, well-kept, vintage buildings, and find that they are all antique stores, almost never an authentic business that has been there. Of course Texas is full of ghost towns, the large cities drew the population in like magnets. Very few places outside of the big cities are anywhere near as populous as the were in the late 19th century.

Paula said...

Hi Dan,

Thank you for the wonderful series on Kline's. It brought back many good memories...

Paula