Joske Brothers Department Store, San Antonio, Little Colonel era

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Joske Brothers Department Store
Where Mary Ware Met Gay Melville at the Glove Counter

Joske's flagship store at Alamo and Commerce Streets in downtown San Antonio, probably prior to the 1909 expansion.
From Wikipedia

In Chapter 4 of Mary Ware in Texas, Gay Melville and Mary decide to meet later in the day at Joske’s:

Finally the glove counter at Joske's was agreed upon as a meeting place, and with a friendly pat on the shoulder in passing, Gay hurried away to keep her engagement.

For many years, Joske’s was a major department store located in Alamo Plaza. Founded in 1867 by Julius Joske, who located his business in San Antonio due to its strategic importance for supplying military posts and as a trade link with Mexico, the store was first located on Main Plaza and was known as J. Joske.

In 1873, Joske sold his original store and went back to Berlin to get his family. Later that same year, he returned to San Antonio and opened a new store, J. Joske and Sons, in a small adobe house close to the United States Army corral. Three years later, the store, renamed Joske Brothers, moved to Alamo Plaza close to the Grand Opera House. In 1887, it moved to larger quarters across the street and employed 35 people.

That store at the corner of Alamo and Commerce streets served as Joske’s flagship for a century, until it was purchased by Dillard’s in 1987. Over the years, it was expanded many times. In 1909, the year before Mary Ware in Texas was published, several new floors, elevators, delivery and a customer service department were added. In 1936, it became the first fully air-conditioned store in Texas, in 1939 escalators were added, and by 1953 it was the largest department store west of the Mississippi.

After Dillard’s purchased Joske’s in 1987, it occupied only two of the five floors of the mega, 551,000-square-foot-store flagship facility on Alamo Plaza. The store closed permanently in August 2008 and the building has since been renovated. It now houses the Rivercenter shopping mall.

Page by Donna Andrews Russell

Earlier: Joske's on Alamo Street, late 1800s

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