Elder-Beerman History
Earlier company descriptions, brand line-ups, store counts and photographs from the history of Elder-Beerman, kept for historical reference.
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The Company Description of Its Time
Elder-Beerman(?:'|')s history begins in 1883, when the Boston Dry Goods Store opened in Dayton, Ohio, and was later incorporated under the name Elder & Johnston Company. The second thread starts with a person: in 1930, after a short career with Elder & Johnston, Arthur Beerman, founder of Elder-Beerman Stores Corp., branched out on his own, and by 1945 Beerman Stores was incorporated. In 1953 Beerman formed a partnership with Max Gutmann, and together they established the Bee Gee Shoe Corporation, which operated the El-Bee Shoe Outlets and Shoebilee! stores for many years before its sale; they also operated Margo's specialty clothing stores.
Gutmann, Glaser and the 1995 Turnaround
After Arthur Beerman's death in 1970, Max Gutmann was promoted to Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. In 1985, Herb Glaser was named president and CEO of the department store division, and with Glaser as president, Gutmann and Glaser developed the Elder-Beerman franchise through the 1980s and early 1990s. The filing then records the crisis plainly: when the company was forced to file for Chapter 11 reorganization in 1995, Max Gutmann and Herb Glaser returned from retirement to turn the company around. During the bankruptcy, Frederick J. Mershad asked to replace Gutmann as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer - a leadership detail kept without adding outcomes the filing does not state.
Growth by acquisition runs through the whole record. Elder-Beerman acquired three chains throughout its history: Cincinnati, Ohio based Mabley & Carew in 1978; Terre Haute, IN-based Meis in 1989; and Wheeling, WV-based Stone & Thomas in 1998. Read together, the three purchases map the chain's territory - Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia - each a neighbouring regional name absorbed into the Dayton company. Department store history is often written this way, merger by merger, and Elder-Beerman's filing is a compact example of the pattern.
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