Miller's Department Store

Miller's Department Store

Company type	Private
Industry	Retail
Founded	1889
Founder	Gus Miller, Frank Miller
Defunct	1992
Fate	Acquired by Hess's (1986), rebranded as Dillard's (1992)
Headquarters	Chattanooga, Tennessee , United States
Area served	East Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina
Products	Department store goods

For the Christchurch building, see Christchurch City Council § Offices.

Miller's Department Store was a retail chain headquartered in East Tennessee.

History

The origins of Miller's date back to 1889 when brothers Gus and Frank Miller opened the New York Racket Store at 510 Market Street in Chattanooga. Following the destruction of the Richardson Building by fire in 1897, the Millers constructed a new establishment at the intersection of Seventh and Market Streets, which became known as Miller Brothers Department Store. This privately held company operated in Chattanooga until 1973. Additionally, a descendant of Gus Miller was instrumental in founding Miller, Inc. based in Knoxville.

On August 1, 1973, retail conglomerate Garfinckel, Brooks Brothers, Miller & Rhoads, Inc. merged the two affiliated Tennessee-based stores—Miller Brothers of Chattanooga and Miller, Inc. of Knoxville—forming Miller's Department Store.

At its inception, the unified chain operated eleven department stores and two specialty outlets across East Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, and North Carolina.

In 1981, following the acquisition of its parent corporation, Miller's became part of Allied Stores. Subsequently, in 1986, the chain was taken over by Hess's through a hostile acquisition and later rebranded as Dillard's in 1992.

Chattanooga flagship store

Template:Infobox NRHP The flagship location of Miller Brothers of Chattanooga, situated at 629 Market Street on the corner of Seventh Street in Chattanooga, Tennessee, was distinguished by housing the city's sole "subway"—an underground retail passage that connected beneath Broad Street to their main store at Seventh and Broad Streets along with an adjoining parking structure. This four-level building featured two snack bars and a Tea Room among numerous amenities uncommon to contemporary retail venues. It was officially listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 17, 1987.

The downtown Chattanooga store ceased operations in 1986 and was subsequently sold to BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, which repurposed it as office space. In 2011, ownership transferred to Mesa Associates, an engineering company.

Knoxville flagship store

An advertisement appearing in the 1902 University of Tennessee yearbook indicates that Miller's Department Store was active at the addresses "315, 317, and 319 Gay Street" in Knoxville during that time. The Miller, Inc. establishment located in downtown Knoxville, constructed in 1905, became a prominent element of the local retail scene and a cornerstone of the downtown commercial area. The site at 445 Gay Street remains recognized as the Miller's Building. Designed by Knoxville architect R. F. Graf, the structure was built in the Edwardian architectural style. A northern extension added in 1911 matched the original design, whereas a 1935 expansion introduced Art Deco elements. In 1998, a restoration project returned the building to its earliest appearance by recreating original features across its three sections. Presently, this building serves as the headquarters for the Knoxville Utilities Board.

Subsequently, Miller's relocated a few blocks west to 600 Henley Street, occupying a building erected around 1954 that had previously been home to a Rich's and later a Hess's store. This mid-century modern structure earned an award from the American Institute of Architects upon completion. Its distinctive features include structural glazed tiles, multicolored glazed brickwork, flowing concrete canopies, and glass-enclosed corner towers. Similar to the Gay Street location, it included an underground passage connecting the store to an adjacent multi-level parking structure across Henley Street. Currently, the University of Tennessee utilizes this Henley Street building as a conference center. Although the parking garage was altered for the 1982 World's Fair and eventually demolished to make way for the new Knoxville Convention Center, the tunnel remains intact and is used for storage and access to waste disposal facilities within the conference center. In February 2011, former Knoxville councilman Don Ferguson petitioned the university to reopen public access to this tunnel.

Reflecting common practices of department stores during its era, Miller's featured amenities such as a restaurant, snack bar, and bakery counter. Their coconut cakes were especially beloved by customers, with the recipe continuing to be highly prized.

Writer James Agee characterized Miller's as a "profoundly matronly store" in his 1957 Pulitzer Prize-winning work, A Death in the Family. Additionally, Cormac McCarthy referenced Miller's in his 1979 novel Suttree, depicting it as a "perfumed and airconditioned sanctuary."

Branch stores

Beyond the primary Chattanooga location, Miller's operated several additional outlets throughout the Chattanooga region, including stores at Eastgate Mall, Bradley Square Mall in Cleveland (which was relocated from Village Mall), and Northgate Mall in Hixson. Notably, Miller Bros. was one of the original anchor tenants when Northgate Mall opened in 1972. Today, the Northgate location is occupied by Belk.

Miller Inc. was among the earliest retailers to open a store in Oak Ridge during the era of the Manhattan Project. The first Miller's outlet in Oak Ridge was launched in 1944 on Broadway. Subsequently, this store moved to the Downtown Shopping Center, which underwent redevelopment between 1989 and 1991 to become Oak Ridge Mall. Additional branches serving the Knoxville vicinity included outlets at East Towne Mall, West Town Mall, and the Foothills Mall located in Maryville.

In the Tri-Cities area, Miller's maintained locations at Fort Henry Mall in Kingsport, The Mall at Johnson City in Johnson City, and Bristol Mall in Bristol, Virginia. Prior to relocating to Fort Henry Mall, the Kingsport store was situated at 300 Broad Street. This downtown establishment was acquired from J. Fred Johnson Company and featured Kingsport's first escalator within its two-story structure.

Miller's presence in Georgia was limited to a single store in Rome, which initially operated as a multi-level downtown department store before moving to Rome's Riverbend Mall in 1975.