Denver has had its fair share of landmark furniture stores. There is the obvious American Furniture Warehouse, still going today. We've highlighted American Furniture Company, which lasted from 1898 to 1974 and was an early leader in employee relations. But do you know Davis & Shaw Furniture Company? This even longer-running Denver business (over a century!) helped to shape the city’s business history and its nightscape.
Davis & Shaw Furniture Company was started as a joint venture of Fred Davis and Peter W. Shaw in 1900. Davis was a farm boy from Iowa and Shaw was born and educated in Birmingham, England. The two opened a store at 1454 Larimer Street and advertised their wares for the Denver every-man. Much like furniture stores of today, they promised that they were “not in the ‘high price clique’” and offered furniture rentals and accounts with “no money down.”
In 1908, Davis & Shaw moved to the the Pioneer Building at the corner of 15th and Larimer and their advertising ambitions grew exponentially. Perhaps one of the most recognizable bits of Davis & Shaw history is the large electric sign that extended from the top of the store. According to a Denver Times article, the sign was born out of a buying trip that Fred Davis made to Chicago, where he saw an electrically animated sign for the White City. While finding a Chicago firm to make the sign proved too expensive, the Ellis Electrical Sign company of Denver was up for the challenge.
The letters in "Davis & Shaw" were six feet high on a framework of steel and iron, and the hundreds of light sockets had to be shipped in from "an Eastern factory." Luckily, the light show was worth it. A 1910 Denver Municipal Facts article promised that it was so successful in drawing attention, the firm was looking into a “new [sign] that [would] extend from the street to the roof of the building and represent the upward shoot of a rocket." Though there is no evidence that this plan came to fruition, the sign was eventually replaced by an even larger display of a woman in a rocking chair.
The business reached sales of about $1 million in 1920 and Davis & Shaw welcomed Davis’s brother-in-law Richard E. Pate into the fold. Shaw died in 1922 and within a few years, Davis sold his interest to Pate, who continued to sell furniture under Davis & Shaw Furniture Company. The store moved to Champa Street, leaving the Pioneer Building to Davis, who opened a new firm, the Fred Davis Furniture Company.
Meanwhile, Davis & Shaw suffered a major loss in 1948, when a fire swept through their downtown warehouse, doing nearly $500,000 in damage. However, the company persevered and stayed in the family, despite changing hands over the next half-century. In 2005, its final owners closed the store and sold the Champa Street building to developer Randy Nichols. Even so, over 100 years of sales and two very important buildings makes Davis & Shaw a landmark Denver business.
Do you have a Davis & Shaw or Fred Davis furniture piece in your home? Are you interested in learning more about these Denver businesses? Much of the information in this blog was tracked down through our Western History Subject Index and local newspapers. You can also take a look at some of Fred Davis’s correspondence or a Davis & Shaw Furniture Company catalog here in Western History and Genealogy.
Comments
It's funny to see Davis and
It's funny to see Davis and Shaw advertising itself as a low-cost furniture store back in the day. From what I remember, the '70s until its closure in 2005, Davis and Shaw sold high-quality furniture--at not particularly economical prices. It was a good store with good merchandise if you had a good amount of money to invest in furniture that would last a long time.
Thanks for commenting, Jude.
Thanks for commenting, Jude. It's always interesting to see how businesses evolve over time.
I well remember walking by
I well remember walking by the Champa St store while in grade school at St Elizabeth on what is now the Auraria campus. (The church with its dark gray steeple still holds services!)
What a great memory, Leta.
What a great memory, Leta. Thanks for sharing!
In the 1970's, going into a
In the 1970's, going into a high-end furniture store was a rare event for us, but at Davis and Shaw, we felt special! We purchased a sofa and love seat in bown wide-whale corduroy--they were traditional, yet perfect on our shag rug, with our moss-rock fireplace and rough sawn cedar paneling. We were in post-hippie heaven! After ten years, we changed decor, and could never find any in the scale or quality of these, so we had them completely re-upholstered and styled with different legs. Everyone loved sittining on them, and when we tired of (emgarrassing to admit) the Southwestern style, our college-aged kids, took them to college. They never needed structural change, nor even different filling and were so soft and comfortable. Later, we purchased Crate and Barrel down-filled sofas, which never held up and looked very sad unless you shook the cushions daily. We returned them. I wish I had my old Davis and Shaw sofas to this day---they were timeless.
Thanks for sharing, Sandy!
Thanks for sharing, Sandy! Quality was definitely a major selling point of Davis & Shaw in the 1970s.
I have a chest of drawers
I have a chest of drawers which belonged to my grandparents. It has a sticker in it that says Fred Davis Furniture Denver. It is such a solid piece of furniture. I am so lucky that my grandfather gave it to me. It was one of the first pieces of furniture my grandparents bought when they got married.
What a nice memory and a
What a nice memory and a solid piece of furniture to go with it. Thanks for sharing your story, Dee!
When my family visited the
When my family visited the store in 1948, we were told that the carpet selection was the largest west of Chicago,
Richard Pate, Sr. wrote a short history of the store
Thanks for sharing your
Thanks for sharing your memory and the Richard Pate book, Robert!
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