I’ve written several posts about
Smith and Gerhart, the well-remembered Lorain store that was a mainstay in Downtown Lorain until it closed in 1980. As I noted before, when the store opened in 1893 it was originally known as the
Boston Store.
Here's an ad from the early days of the firm. It appeared in the
Lorain Times-Herald on May 16, 1901. Note that the names of the men behind the firm appear at the bottom of the ad.
By 1927, the firm had changed its name to Smith and Gerhart. The Boston Store name still appeared in the ads for a time, but it was severely downplayed. Here's an ad (
below) that ran in the
Lorain Times-Herald on August 26, 1927.
Well, did you know (or remember) that much later there was
another store in Downtown Lorain that also had the Boston name?
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| From a January 1, 1968 ad in the Lorain Journal |
Boston Vitamin & Cosmetic Distributors (later shortened to Boston’s Discount Centers) first showed up in the Lorain City Directory around the time of the 1962 edition. It was a drug store offering discount prescriptions located at 362 Broadway.
 |
| Courtesy Lorain Historical Society |
The store later moved to 129 Fourth Street in the early 1970s.
I remembered the Boston’s store from my family’s weekly visits to Downtown Lorain each Saturday morning for trumpet lessons with Mr. Visci. I could see the store on Fourth Street (next to Ted Jacob's) from the upstairs window of Mr. Visci's studio at 356 Broadway.
Boston's continued to appear in the city directory until its listing disappeared in the 1975 edition.
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| From a December 19, 1963 ad in the Lorain Journal |
4 comments:
Boston's, of course, became Revco, which was at that location until Meridian Plaza opened.
I'm glad you mentioned that, Alan! I remembered Revco there too, but these days I don't like to rely on my memory too much without confirmation.
When my grandpa was 10 years old his family was living above the stores at 932 Broadway, and he was working as a shoe delivery boy for Boston Shoe Store at 952 Broadway. He was walking down the street delivering shoes not far from the theater at the time of the tornado in 1924. He said when the tornado hit, some woman pulled him into a store and down to a basement, so he was uninjured. I'm not sure if the Boston Shoe Store was damaged by the tornado. If it was, maybe it changed names after it was repaired or rebuilt.
I forgot to mention, where my grandfather lived at 932 Broadway in 1924, it was located over The Lakeside Biscuit Co.
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