Jim McKee: From big to bygone

Many businesses originated and grew to prominence in Omaha. Some seemed so vast and successful it was assumed they would exist forever. One of the dozen or so top contenders in that category in my memory were Brandeis’ Department Stores, which grew to multiple outlets in Lincoln and Omaha, with stores in more distant Nebraska cities, too. And now, almost suddenly it seems, the name has all but disappeared.

Jonas L. Brandeis was born in either 1836 or 1837 in Prague. After immigrating to the U.S., he lived in Milwaukee and later Manitowoc, Wisconsin, before arriving in Omaha in 1881 with his wife, daughter and three sons. Exact dates are elusive but by that December he had opened a store called The Fair at 506 S. 13th St. and the following year also rented the adjoining store. Business grew apace and the store began advertising in newspapers and “advertising wagons” announcing “special sales” which allowed his leasing of additional space at 13th and Howard.

By 1888, the now named Boston Store was located at 114 S. 16th St., the northwest corner of 16th and Douglas. The Brandeis family then lived at 521 Pleasant, a difficult address to nail down today, while the city directory listed J. L. Brandeis Wholesale & Retail Notions at 506 S. 13th and J. L. Brandeis Shoes & Boots at 514 N. 16th.

In 1894 J. L. Brandeis & Sons Boston Store was totally destroyed by fire. By then acquiring some adjacent property, a new building, twice the size of the former store, on the same site, was completed by the following year. By the end of 1895 their annual sales were reported at $400,000, they employed 100 and all three Brandeis sons, Arthur, Hugo and Emil were active in the firm.

J. L. Brandeis died in 1903 with Arthur assuming the company’s presidency. The corporation purchased the old YMCA and adjoining land in about 1905, and Omaha architect John Latenser was contracted to design a new building on the southwest corner of 16th and Douglas. The new building, completed in 1906, was described as being eight stories tall, of brick, terra cotta and stone, 132 by 264 feet, in the Classical Design and costing $650,000. The upper floors were then leased as bank offices, with the lower levels serving as their retail store.

About 1906 Jonas’ nephew E. John Brandeis, who had trained at The Boston Store in Chicago, became the store’s manager with Arthur’s son E. John Brandeis elevated to the corporate level offices. Under E. John’s leadership, merchandise buyers were sent to European markets, and Brandeis became known as one of the largest family-owned stores in the U.S. and “one of the best known retail mercantile establishments in the Missouri Valley.”

In 1909-10 the Brandeis Theatre opened to the west at 17th and Douglas and was connected by tunnel under 17th Street, to the department store with an elevator to the theater’s lobby. A newspaper account claimed it to be “the most beautiful theatre in America.”

Emil Brandeis died in the sinking of the Titanic, the only Omahan lost in the tragedy, while the store had become perhaps the most prominent retailer in the city. The corporation was also a prime mover in the city’s development, donating the land for the Fontenelle Hotel with no limiting conditions save it be at least a million dollar project. In 1914 the retail store claimed to have 500 employees.

In 1921 a $120,000 addition added two additional floors and 216,700 square feet to the store while the name informally became simply Brandeis. “The 10th floor was taken up with restaurants which … compare with the most celebrated cafes (in the world) especially the Italian Renaissance Room.” The store, now with 11 elevators and over 1,000 employees, was considered “the largest store in the west” with offices in “London, Paris, Lyons, Florence, Yokohamah, Brussels, Vienna and Berlin.” Along with Omaha’s first escalator, the store also boasted a post office and free telephones.

Brandeis became a developer itself, creating the Crossroads Shopping Center at 72nd and Dodge in 1960. The Brandeis Theatre, known then as the R.K.O. Brandeis, was razed in 1959 for a parking garage. Brandeis acquired Gold’s Department Stores in Lincoln in 1964 and closed the downtown location in November of 1980, selling its entire retail operation to Yonkers of Des Moines in 1987 for $33.9 million. The downtown Omaha building was then sold to Townsend Corp. of Overland Park, Kansas, for conversion to an office building. The building itself, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982, was renovated for $18 million as apartments and condominiums.

The book Lost Omaha tells of Brandeis’ Douglas Street building being connected by tunnels to the Medical Arts Building, J. C. Penny’s, Woolworths, and Woodman Tower in the 1970s but not mentioning the old theater/parking lot tunnel which, one wonders, may be the only remnant of that interesting subterranean passageway and tiny reminder of the once spectacular downtown Brandeis Department Store.

This article originally ran on journalstar.com.