The twentieth century was a time of major changes for American retail. Simple downtown dry goods stores evolved into full line department stores and then moved to the suburbs.
One excellent example of this is the Belk in Monroe, North Carolina. Below you can see the one hundred year evolution of what was a small dry goods store (in 1888)to a typical small town department store (in 1950) into a modern regional destination (by 1960) that eventually relocated to a regional mall (in 1979) to capture even more sales, and is still successful today.
Many thanks for Patrick Richardson for providing most of these historic photos.
Belk, Monroe, North Carolina. Original "New York Racket" dry goods store, late 1800s. (Courtesy Pat Richardson)
Belk, Monroe, North Carolina. Exterior on sale day, July 19, 1934. (Courtesy Pat Richardson)
Belk, Monroe, North Carolina. renovated exterior, 1940s. (Courtesy Pat Richardson)
Belk, Monroe, North Carolina. 1950's shoe salesman Hadley Helms. (Courtesy Pat Richardson)
Belk, Monroe, North Carolina. 1950's saleswoman. (Courtesy Pat Richardson)
Belk, Monroe, North Carolina. circa 1955. (Belk, Inc.)
Belk, Monroe, North Carolina. Harvest Sale w/ William Henry Belk enjoying the proceedings, 1950. (Courtesy Pat Richardson)
Belk, Monroe, North Carolina. Remodeled exterior, sometime in the late 1950s. (Courtesy Pat Richardson)
Belk, Monroe, North Carolina. A typical shopping scene from the 1950s. (Courtesy Pat Richardson)
Belk, Monroe Mall, Monroe, North Carolina. Exterior entrance, 11/2/06. (Pat Richardson)Previously on LiveMalls
Belk, Monroe Mall
The Belk Archive
