G. Fox & Co.
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Retail |
| Founded | 1847 |
| Founder | Gerson Fox, Isaac Fox |
| Defunct | 1993 |
| Fate | Acquired by The May Department Stores Company in 1965; brand phased out by 1993 |
| Headquarters | Hartford, Connecticut , United States |
Area served | New England |
Key people | Beatrice Fox Auerbach (president from 1938) |
| Products | Department store goods |
G. Fox & Co. was a prominent American department store chain founded in 1847 by siblings Gerson and Isaac Fox. Its main store and corporate headquarters were situated in Hartford, Connecticut, serving customers throughout the New England region. Prior to its acquisition by The May Department Stores Company in 1965, it held the distinction of being the largest privately owned department store in the United States. The May Company eventually phased out the G. Fox brand, rebranding its locations as Filene's by 1993.
Origins
The enterprise began in 1847 when brothers Gerson and Isaac Fox launched a retail business initially called I. & G. Fox Co. Their first outlet was a modest single-room shop located in Hartford, Connecticut.[1] After Isaac sold his stake to Gerson, the company was renamed G. Fox and Company. In 1863, Moses Fox, Gerson’s son, joined the firm and assumed leadership following his father’s passing in 1880. Early on, the store gained recognition for its home delivery service, which utilized wheelbarrows for local distribution. By the time a devastating fire consumed the five-story building in January 1917,[1] Moses Fox, then aged 66, committed to promptly rebuilding with an ambitious eleven-story structure.[2] The replacement flagship was constructed at 960 Main Street in downtown Hartford. Remarkably, following the fire, customers voluntarily paid nearly 95% of their outstanding balances, which motivated Moses Fox to commission a grand new building designed by New York architect Cass Gilbert.[1] This imposing eleven-story edifice initially earned the nickname "Fox's folly" due to its scale and grandeur. The new store officially opened its doors in 1918.[1] The tragedy also prompted Moses’s daughter Beatrice Fox Auerbach and her husband George Samuel Auerbach to return from Salt Lake City to assist with operations; after George’s death in 1927, Beatrice worked closely with her father to manage the business.
Beatrice Fox Auerbach
In 1938, following the passing of her father, Moses Fox, Gerson's granddaughter, Beatrice Fox Auerbach, assumed leadership of the company. Under her guidance, the business evolved into a leading retail establishment throughout southern New England for much of the twentieth century. Shortly after taking the helm, Mrs. Auerbach initiated an extensive refurbishment that introduced refined art deco design elements inside the store, along with a distinctive marquee crowning the display windows and entrances facing Main Street. As one of the foremost figures in American retail management, she earned widespread admiration in Hartford for her civic contributions and philanthropy, including a generous endowment to the University of Hartford, which honored her by naming Auerbach Hall after her.
Mrs. Auerbach was renowned for cultivating strong employee loyalty and was a trailblazer in implementing progressive employee benefit programs such as retirement plans, an on-site medical facility, financial assistance for staff members in need, paid holidays, and affordable meals. To recognize long-term dedication, she established the Moses Fox Club to celebrate employees reaching twenty-five years of continuous service, with further recognition at forty and fifty years. Up until the year before her death, Mrs. Auerbach personally presented at least one fifty-year service pin annually during the club's gatherings.
Her commitment to exceptional customer service was unwavering; employees were empowered to ensure complete client satisfaction regardless of expense. While sales personnel lacked authority to finalize such decisions, service managers held ultimate discretion and occasionally overruled merchants to meet customer needs. No service manager ever faced reprimand for these actions; however, merchants who resisted were occasionally summoned to Mrs. Auerbach’s office on the eleventh floor for a personal reminder of her dedication to customer satisfaction. Demonstrating this ethos further, a small team of service managers and drivers often worked late into Christmas Eve night to deliver replacement gifts that had not arrived in time for holiday celebrations.
Following Mrs. Auerbach’s visionary leadership—affectionately called "Mrs. A" by employees—the company expanded its downtown premises with several significant additions. Notably, a nine-story retail extension was constructed on the Market Street side at the rear of the building. This expansion required relocating a substantial nine-story brick and steel warehouse from one side of the block to the other—a remarkable engineering accomplishment at that time. Additional developments included a major warehouse facility in the 1930s, which Mrs. Auerbach preferred to designate as the "Service Building," and a multi-level parking garage erected in the 1960s to accommodate family vehicles arriving via two newly completed Interstate highways into Hartford’s downtown area, along with a sixty-station telephone order department.
The parking structure was strategically positioned adjacent to the interchange connecting I-91 and I-84. Local lore suggests that this interchange’s original design—infamously flawed and constrained—was influenced by Mrs. Auerbach’s insistence that highway off-ramps deposit customers virtually at her store’s entrance. Given the era’s limited number of female executives, this tale—if accurate—would highlight her substantial influence within Hartford’s business circles. Nevertheless, this narrative is often regarded as an urban legend. The incomplete nature of the interchange stemmed from community opposition to planned connectors passing through or beneath Bushnell Park and its expansive lawn near the Connecticut State Capitol; these connectors would have linked traffic onto both highways south of their current crossing point. To this day, motorists using Interstate 84 at Sisson Avenue can observe unfinished exit ramps intended for those unbuilt connections. Ultimately, it was not until the mid-1990s that technological advances enabled reconstruction of the interchange—including a "fly-over" ramp facilitating traffic from I-84 East to I-91 North—that corrected many earlier shortcomings. When G. Fox (under May Co.’s ownership) developed its third branch location in Meriden, it funded state highway improvements to ensure a nearby exit was completed in time for that store’s grand opening.
Downtown growth
During the mid-1900s, the company focused its expansion efforts solely on its downtown Hartford location. Contrary to common retail strategies of the time, Mrs. Auerbach was convinced that opening branch outlets would diminish the flagship store's unique appeal. This belief was influenced in part by the unsuccessful Foxmart venture, a farm equipment and supply offshoot situated in Connecticut's Tobacco Valley. Rather than establishing additional branches, Mrs. Auerbach dedicated approximately one-third of the 11th floor Toy Department to enlarge the store's telephone-order operation. To support this initiative, the business installed direct phone connections to every exchange throughout Connecticut and extended into parts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. In 1947, marking two years after the conclusion of World War II, G. Fox commemorated its centennial anniversary.
The last major enlargement of the downtown location took place in 1969 when G. Fox acquired and expanded into the basement as well as the first and second floors of the neighboring historic Cheney Building, a structure designed by H. H. Richardson. This building previously housed Brown Thomson, another local department store that G. Fox had purchased earlier (the third through fifth floors had already been integrated into G. Fox for administrative purposes such as general management, personnel, credit & collection, advertising, marketing, and other back-office operations). Later on, in 1980, this building was transformed into the Richardson Shops Mall, featuring around 40 retail outlets, a food court, and some residential units. The mall also served as a connection between G. Fox and the flagship store of another regional department store chain, Sage-Allen, which ceased operations at this site in summer 1990; the entire Sage-Allen chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and ultimately closed in 1994.
The flagship G. Fox store gained recognition for its customer attractions, including an extensive walk-through Christmas display and a talking myna bird residing in a large cage on the fifth floor. The store was an innovator in showcasing home furnishings arranged within realistic room settings such as kitchens, living rooms, bedrooms, and dens. Two dining options were available on the second floor: a casual lunch bar and the more upscale Connecticut Room offering full table service meals. Occasionally, fashion shows were held during meal service to entertain guests.
May Department Stores era
Following its acquisition by the May Department Stores Company in 1965, G. Fox embarked on an ambitious program to expand beyond Hartford by opening its first branch location in 1969 in Waterbury. This marked the beginning of a 12-store branch network that continued growing until 1992 when the chain was absorbed into May’s Filene's division. Due to this consolidation, combined with a severe recession impacting the regional economy in the early 1990s and the deteriorating condition of Hartford’s downtown retail district, both the flagship store and corporate offices were permanently closed on January 29, 1993.
Transition to Filene's
Before the merger with Filene's, plans were announced for two additional G. Fox locations in Albany, New York and Stamford, Connecticut. The Albany store ultimately opened in 1994 at Crossgates Mall, but under the Filene's name. Meanwhile, the Stamford store, intended as part of a new mall featuring an existing Lord & Taylor, was never constructed. Later, a Filene's outlet commenced operations in 1996 at the nearby Stamford Town Center mall, occupying a former J.C. Penney space; however, it ceased operations in 2004.
On February 1, 1993, all remaining G. Fox & Co. stores were rebranded as Filene's. This continued until September 9, 2006, when the majority of the Filene's chain transitioned to Macy's. This change followed the completion of the merger between May Company and (the acquisition by) Federated Department Stores on August 30, 2005, after which Federated rebranded itself as Macy's, Inc.
After nearly ten years of vacancy, the former G. Fox building in downtown Hartford reopened in autumn 2002 as a mixed-use commercial facility named 960 Main. The structure now accommodates retail outlets at street level, office spaces, meeting rooms including the "Gershon Fox Room" honoring one of the store’s founders, and serves as the campus for Capital Community College. This adaptive reuse preserved numerous original Art Deco interior and exterior features while introducing a spacious internal atrium and improved circulation areas. Additionally, a new and significantly larger parking garage was constructed on the site of the original G. Fox garage located at Market and Talcott Streets.
The building is recognized on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Department Store Historic District.
See also
- List of defunct department stores of the United States
- List of department stores converted to Macy's
References
External links
- Remembering G. Fox & Co., Connecticut Historical Society