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Store on Michigan Street from 1878 – closed 1972
The dry-goods house: George Wyman and Company — Wyman's, to the whole city — was the South Bend dry-goods institution: on The History Museum's count its run was 112 years, and its store at 107–109 North Michigan Street dated from 1878. The Museum's summary of its services marks what a great dry-goods house meant before the term department store: a splendid stock of staples and fancy dry goods, and, built around the cloth, a hat-making shop, a window-shade cutting room, and home deliveries across a fifty-mile territory. The generation that grew up shopping downtown South Bend shopped at Wyman's first.
The last store standing downtown's old order: In 1951 Wyman's bought the Ellsworth department store next door, and in 1962 it gave the combined front a new face — five additions integrated behind a blue-and-white ceramic tile façade. Wyman's closed in 1972, two years before its rival Robertson's even began to think of leaving (see the next entry); the building was demolished in 1973. The site is a parking lot at the heart of the old retail block.
Sources:
- The History Museum, South Bend, "Robertson's and Wyman's" — the 112-year run of George Wyman and Company; the store at 107–109 North Michigan Street from 1878; the dry-goods stock, hat making, window-shade cutting, and fifty-mile delivery service; the 1951 purchase of the Ellsworth store; the 1962 ceramic-tile façade renovation; the 1972 closing and the 1973 demolition.