Does the stress of holiday shopping make you long for a stroll through an early 20th-century department store?
Teenager Helen Elizabeth Thompson wrote about her visit to Denver’s legendary Daniels & Fisher Department Store in an English class composition dated March 12, 1917. Helen Elizabeth's mother, Lucy May “Jessie” Thompson (1867-1941), worked as a seamstress at the store for more than 20 years. Helen Elizabeth's composition is part of the Jessie Thompson Papers (WH1870).
Wrote Helen Elizabeth:
I had the pleasure of going through one of our most complete dry goods stores in our city Saturday. The main building is six stories high, with a tower of twenty-three stories. It is of white brick. It has a wonderful clock that may be seen from quite a distance.
This clock is useful as well as ornamental as it winds itself and also turns on the electric lights in the building at a certain hour. It is run by electricity and strikes the hour which may be heard for blocks away.
On one side of the building is an electric flag to show their patriotism and on a flag pole on top of the tower three hundred and seventy-five feet from the sidewalk waves another American flag.
The entry room is very attractive. There are two large doors into the room. The room is of Colorado marble. There are two elevators and we entered one of them. In making the ascent, we learned that the first four floors are completely filled with dry goods.
On the fifth floor there are tea rooms. The decorations of the men’s dining room are of light blue. The general dining room is of light yellow with white pillars. On these pillars are light yellow lights.
In back of this room is the place where all of the cooking is done. On Saturday, they make from 1,000 to 1,500 loaves of bread besides cooking for the home cook foods department in the basement as well as for their lunch room.
On the sixth floor are mailing and office rooms.
On the ninth, there are manicure parlors. On the twelfth is Hopkin’s studio [photographer]. On the fourteenth is a private dining room.
On the fifteenth, there is a school room. The pupils are girls employed by this store. They are promoted according to their ability. The school is in session from nine to twelve. Miss Vernard is their teacher. The pupils are taught as in other schools but they also learn the art of becoming good sales ladies.
Next we reached the tower. This is where one may look over the city and the surrounding country and see the Arapaho Peaks fifty miles to the north and Pikes Peak seventy-five miles south. Tourists are frequent visitors to this tower and it is there that souvenirs are sold.
The Jessie Thompson Papers (WH1870) contain many unique items, including an autograph book dated 1881 (with lovely examples of cursive penmanship and painted illustrations), fragile volumes of Godey’s Lady’s Book from the 1860s, and a run of correspondence between Jessie Thompson and her nephew, Jesse R. Link (1896-1964), when Link was stationed at Camp Lewis (Washington) and Camp Travis (Texas) during World War I.
More photographs of the Daniels & Fisher Department Store can be found in a Daniels & Fisher gallery and in the DPL Digital Collections. In addition to the Jessie Thompson Papers, DPL’s Western History and Genealogy Department is pleased to house the Daniels & Fisher Records (WH12).
![View of the corner, four-story Daniels & Fisher building at 16th (Sixteenth) and Lawrence Streets in the Central Business District in Denver, Colorado. Windows have hood molding and awnings and the flat roof line has decorative brackets and finials. Shows horse drawn carriages in the street, street car tracks on 16th Street and probably telephone poles. A sign reads: "W.F. Perkins, Cigars [and] Tobacco."](https://history.denverlibrary.org/sites/history/files/cdm_84057.jpg)
Comments
What a fun way to lunch,
What a fun way to lunch, Sallie! Thanks for sharing!
My mother and I shopped at
My mother and I shopped at Daniels & Fisher on the occasional Saturday in the late 1940s-early 1950s. I can picture the very tall, very polite doorman. The sales women remembered my mother's name and sometimes mine. Lunch in the tea room was a highlight of these excursions.
Thanks for sharing your
Thanks for sharing your memories with us, Karen! According to a comment from Roger D., the doorman was a man named Karl Zandell, who stood 7'3" and weighed 287 lbs.
I lived in Denver until we
I lived in Denver until we moved east in 1958, & I have many fond memories of shopping with my mother. We were always on a budget, but once in a while Mom would treat us to lunch at the D & F Tearoom. I remember a black & white marble floor, having to hike myself up onto a high stool at the fountain counter, & being sure to eat all my cream cheese sandwich on date/nut bread, so I could order one of their fabulous hot fudge sundaes for dessert. The vanilla ice cream was rolled into a ball & paved with chopped pecans, & served in a stemmed sundae glass with delicious hot fudge sauce. Never had another to match it!
A few years back I visited my old home town & while I was glad to see the old tower landmark still holding court downtown, it was bittersweet not to be able to visit that beautiful store filled with all my pleasant childhood memories. .
I’m working on a sequel to my
I’m working on a sequel to my novel, Dear Kiss, and needed some background on a store in Denver. I made one up, but was hoping I could refer to a real one. Reading about that wonderful store brought back memories of Woodward and Lothrop and Garfinkles in D C. Gone now but not even remembered by younger women.We are used to ordering things on line but I do remember a day of shopping complete with lunch in a tea room.my grand daughters see that as “ the old days” but I am lucky to still remember those times. Thank you for the diligence in preserving and archiving same.
My Granpa talked about the
My Granpa talked about the tall “guard” (I see in other comments that he was the doorman/elevator man). My Granpa said that he would teasingly ask, “How’s the weather up there?” And the guy would spit and say “Wet” to tease back. My Granpa also commented how funny it was that a guy that size married a wife who was only 4’7” and what a sight he made pushing a baby carriage.
So glad the tower is still up and continues to give opportunities for more stories!
I worked there in 1951,…
I worked there in 1951, fresh out of college (CU). My major was Journalism, but I hadn't found
a job yet. Then, a D & F store opened in Colo. Springs, so I worked there until I found a
journalism job in Colorado Springs. Thank you so much for publishing this. I enjoyed reading it.
in research for my novel,…
in research for my novel, Annie Elgin, i read about and studied photos of the lunchroom using and reconfiguring details for my needs. I remember Marshall Fields in Chicago as well as Woodward and Lothrup in D. C. The day of such places is gone but the lunchroom was my tea room pattern. So glad to know so much is archived in your library
I included in my novel,…
I included in my novel, Annie Elgin, in edit , a reference to the store. My main character had traveled to Denver and copied what she could in designing a modest tearoom next to her millinery located in Ogden Utah in about 1908.I would love it if stores like this still existed, remembering Marshall Fields, Woodies in Washington DC and our own ZCMI in Salt Lake. Now they live only in books. So grateful for the photographs and the young girl’s memory
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