Emery, Bird, Thayer & Company in Kansas City, Missouri.
Emery, Bird, Thayer & Company was a department store in Downtown Kansas City, Missouri, that traced its history nearly to the city’s origins as Westport Landing. The store, known as EBT, closed in 1968, and its building, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was torn down in 1972.
Covered Wagon
Kersey Coates and William Gillis established the store in the 1860s in what was then called the Town of Kansas at the corner of Missouri Avenue and Main Street. Initially, the store outfitted traders, trappers, and pioneers bound for the frontier on the Oregon and Santa Fe Trails.
Later, it became more upscale and moved to a new three-story building at 7th and Main Streets. The store later merged with a store operated by Thomas B. Bullene and became Coates and Bullene. Still later, the department store became the Bullene, Moore, and Emery Department Store. The store assumed its final name in the 1890s from investors W. E. Emery, Joseph Taylor Bird. Sr., and William B. Thayer.
The company soon constructed a beautiful new building occupying a full block along East 11th Street from Walnut to Grand. It was designed by the nationally prominent architect Henry Van Brunt of the Kansas City firm Van Brunt and Howe. Van Brunt’s firm also designed the New Coates House Hotel.
Emery, Bird, Thayer & Company on the right side of Petticoat Lane.
The five stories high new store building was an outstanding example of the Free Romanesque style of architecture of the 1890s. With its arcades, brick columns, and neo-Romanesque capitals, it soon became the prime attraction on the city’s main retail thoroughfare, popularly known as Petticoat Lane. Customers also enjoyed the wide aisles, latticed grillwork, brass elevator cages, and personal service they received from employees.
In addition to its luxurious merchandise, the store was famed for its Tea Room. Many customers rode up the elevator to the third-floor Tea Room to enjoy more elegance with its soft carpet, linen tablecloths, and ceiling fans. Its “everyday” china was made in Limoges, France, by the Theodore Haviland Company. The Tea Room was the scene of many a wedding breakfast, luncheon party, afternoon tea, or reception. Once a year, the Tea Room hosted an annual tea party for children and their dolls. As a souvenir, each child was given a doll’s tea party set.
Emily Bird Tea Room
In addition to high-scale goods, the merchandiser also carried everyday items such as blankets, yard goods patterns, mittens and gloves, cooking pots, dishes, glassware, jewelry, furniture, drugs, millinery, carpets, and more.
On July 11, 1896, six years after the building was erected, an estimated 5,000 shoppers ascended to the third floor by 10 a.m. for a shirtwaist sale. That day, the new-fashioned button-down women’s blouses were discounted from $1.25 to 25 cents, and the store sold 9,619 of them.
Also called the “Big Store,” the business was considered the finest department store west of the Mississippi River. A promotional brochure from 1902 described it as “the biggest retail dry goods store in the state of Missouri.” A 1915 story in the Kansas City Star said there were “two acres of floor space.” At that time, EBT had 2,000 employees.
Emery, Bird, Thayer & Company Catalogue
Like other early businesses in the area, black people suffered from racism during the Jim Crow era. They weren’t allowed to try on clothes or hats or to eat in restaurants until 1959.
In 1923 future famed Hollywood actress Joan Crawford, then known as Billie Cassin, worked for the department store. She had moved to Kansas City from Oklahoma with her family in 1916. Often, after she got off work, she was known to wait for dates or friends beneath the store’s awning. This was so common with her and others that some referred to it as “Emery’s Porch.” Also working there for a time was Broadway star and Oscar-nominated actress Jeanne Eagels.
In 1925, EBT expanded by opening another store at 47th Street and Broadway Boulevard on the Country Club Plaza and purchased the Bundschu store on the courthouse square in Independence.
After World War II ended in 1945, Emery, Bird, and Thayer started to struggle and closed its famed tea room. At that time, downtown Kansas City was in decline, and customers were moving from the urban core to the suburbs, where there were other shopping options.
In the next years, it could not keep pace with changing retail fashions and settlement patterns. With the emergence of malls, downtown retailers began to fail, and the decision was made to close the store in 1968 after nearly eight decades of operation.
Emery, Bird, Thayer & Company Store Exterior
On August 7, 1968, when the downtown Emery, Bird, Thayer department store closed for good, thousands of shoppers swarmed the huge building for a going-out-of-business sale. The crowd was so large that 41 police officers were assigned to control the crowd.
Its closure caused the loss of 800 jobs. The Plaza and Independence stores were sold to Macy’s.
In 1971, the Emery, Bird, Thayer Building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
After the historic structure stood empty for nearly five years, demolition began in 1972. It then became a surface parking lot. Ten years later, UMB Financial Corporation constructed a building on the site.
The firm’s warehouse at 16th and Walnut has been converted into residential lofts. During the renovation, lettering on the side of the warehouse reading “Emery Bird Thayer Warehouse” was repainted.
The old department store was located at 1016–1018 Grand Avenue.
©Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, June 2023.
Also See:
Emery, Bird, Thayer & Company Store Window, 1905
Sources:
Joan Crawford Best
Kansas City History
Kansas City Library
National Register of Historic Places Nomination
NPR in Kansas City
Tea With Friends
Wikipedia