The four Rhodes brothers, Henry, Albert, William, and Charles, were leaders in retail in Western Washington in the early twentieth century. They came from Wisconsin and ran several businesses including Rhodes Brothers department store in Tacoma, Rhodes Brothers Ten Cent Store in Seattle, and the Rhodes Company department store in Seattle. Incorporated in 1893, Rhodes Brothers in Tacoma was the first store. All four brothers were involved in the business at one time or another, but Henry Rhodes played the biggest role. William set out for Seattle in 1900 and opened a new store with investment support from Henry and Albert. In 1903 it became Rhodes Brothers Ten Cent Store. Albert opened The Rhodes Company department store in Seattle in 1907, also with some investment support from his brothers. As William put it in 1921 at the time of Albert's death, "We brothers have always worked together, pulled together, working one-for-the-other" ("A. J. Rhodes Called by Death ..."). All three stores flourished for decades before new ownership led to closures and rebranding for all the Rhodes stores.
Arrival in Tacoma
Brothers Henry Abraham Rhodes (1863-1954), Albert James Rhodes (1864-1921), William Lawrence Rhodes (1867-1945), and Charles Wesley Rhodes (1871-1964) were born and grew up in Trempealeau, Wisconsin. They were four of eight children born to Joshua Rhodes (1827-1907) and Susan Eastman Rhodes (1834-1890). Joshua was a farmer and had immigrated from England as a teenager.
When Henry and Albert were 19 and 18, respectively, they ran a small business in Trempealeau selling candy, cigars, tobacco, crackers, and a selection of fabrics. Henry had completed several years of university education and had saved money by working as a teacher. Albert was in school but chose to withdraw to focus on the business. They found early success, particularly when a new railway line was being built in town. Henry married Birdella Booher (1864-1941) in 1886 and the couple had their first child, Vera (1887-1970), in 1887. With a growing family and increasing expenses, Henry took on side work and attempted to start additional businesses. After the railway was built, business in Trempeleau faded and the original store closed.
Albert, unmarried and able to take on the risk of a new adventure, was the first to come to the Pacific Northwest, arriving in Tacoma in 1889. Henry recounted in his memoir:
"It was originally our hope that Albert and I might come west together. I had for some time been keenly interested in the Puget Sound country and particularly in Tacoma, since it received much favorable publicity as the terminus and western headquarters of the Northern Pacific railroad. This city seemed at that time to hold the key to the future of the Northwest, with its vast natural resources still virtually untapped. I was extremely disappointed at not being able to accompany Albert, but my fortunes were then at a low ebb and I had family responsibilities" (Rhodes, 55).
Albert first worked for a store that sold crockery and home furnishings and then became a travelling salesman for M. Seller & Co. of Portland, Oregon. The third brother William came to Tacoma in 1890 and began work as a salesman. Henry finally arrived in 1892 and started a tea and coffee store. With a $100 investment, William joined him in the venture. It opened at 932 C Street (now Broadway), but the business moved to several different locations along C Street within the first few years. In November 1893 Rhodes Brothers officially incorporated. At that time, Albert and Henry each owned 44 percent of the stock and William owned the remaining 12 percent. Albert did not become active in the day-to-day operations of the business until later.
Merchants for the Klondike Gold Rush
During the Klondike Gold Rush in the late 1890s, Seattle merchants received the bulk of the prospectors coming to the region before making the journey north to Alaska. Fewer prospectors came to Tacoma to be outfitted. Those who did stop in Tacoma usually wanted to buy on credit. This was risky for stores because they had little recourse to collect once a prospector left town. Eager to gain experience and set himself apart, William expressed interest in opening a store in Alaska. With the support of his brothers, he went to Dyea, Alaska, with a stock of goods and lumber to construct a building. William arrived too late. By the time he made it to Dyea the Klondike Gold Rush was already subsiding and the town was nearly empty. The store lasted six months, selling enough to break even but not enough to turn a profit.
Around the time of the Klondike Gold Rush, the Rhodes's Tacoma store moved to Pacific Avenue. Henry was experimenting with expanding their lines of merchandise to increase profitability. Inspired by merchants John Wanamaker (1838-1922) and Marshall Field (1834-1906), Henry believed that department stores were the future of retail and worked toward the goal of taking Rhodes Brothers in that direction. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, department stores sold a wide range of goods including food and household items. Before ready-to-wear clothing was widely available, stores instead sold fabrics, patterns, trimmings, and accessories. While at the Pacific Avenue location, Rhodes had four departments:
- Dept. No. 1: tea, coffee, spices, extracts, etc.;
- Dept. No. 2: China, glassware, crockery;
- Dept. No. 3: books, stationary, school supplies, etc.;
- Dept. No. 4: dry goods, including woolen dress goods, wash goods, linens, domestics, dry goods notions, ribbons, laces, etc.
The Dream of a Full Department Store
To realize the dream of a full department store, Rhodes Brothers again needed more space. They chose a new location back on C Street (later Broadway) and 11th Street in Tacoma, which opened in 1903. By 1907 they were ready to expand into an addition, and in 1911 they added three more stories to the building. This meant a total of six stories, 120,000 square feet of selling floor space, a roof garden, and a tearoom. This 1911 version of the building became iconic to the downtown Tacoma cityscape.
The success of Rhodes Brothers also meant an elevated civic profile for Henry Rhodes. He became a director of the Tacoma Chamber of Commerce in 1895 and later served as its president. In 1909 he headed the charter revision committee, which created Tacoma's system of governance by commissioners, which lasted until 1952. Henry saw this as an extension of his role as president of the company. Henry admitted that it caused tension with Albert, who also had civic ambitions but was relegated to a secondary position at the store and in the community. With the knowledge that it would be difficult to continue sharing that ambition within the same store and same city, the brothers eventually founded The Rhodes Company in Seattle.
The fourth brother, Charles Rhodes, came to Tacoma around 1895 and began working at Rhodes Brothers sometime in the early years of it becoming a department store. Initially much less experienced in retail than his older brothers, Charles started as Henry's assistant and worked in the personnel department. Around 1910 he moved to Yakima to open a 5 cent, 10 cent, and 15 cent store. That business struggled, and he returned to Tacoma after three years. He returned with more experience and took on an executive role as superintendent and personnel manager. By the time Charles returned to Tacoma, both Albert and William had left for their own ventures. Henry involved his son Edward Rhodes (1889-1918) and son-in-law Audsley Fraser (1886-1958) in the business. His wish was that Edward would one day become the executive head of the firm. That hope was dashed when Edward died in World War I.
Wartime Business and a Decision to Sell
Business was good and the sales volume was particularly strong during World War I. Rhodes Brothers acquired two nearby buildings and adjacent lots along Market Street in Tacoma. After the war, they built a connecting bridge across the alley to link the annex to the original space. This update spurred other modernizations to the store, such as replacing the pneumatic-tube system with electronic cash registers in each department, an electric credit-approval system using interconnecting telephones, new lighting fixtures, and a larger switchboard.
Despite the success, or perhaps because of it, Henry Rhodes was feeling increasingly exhausted by running the business. The loss of his son Edward, coupled with the departure of another top executive, Walter Reynolds, left a gap in leadership that was difficult to fill. Henry was tempted by an offer from B. F. Schlesinger & Sons to purchase Rhodes Brothers and operate it as part of a consortium of stores on the West Coast. Henry discussed it with his family and even offered his son-in-law Audsley the opportunity to take over management of the store. The whole family seemed to agree that it was time to sell. The sale to B. F. Schlesinger & Sons became official on July 25, 1925.
A Series of Acquisitions and Mergers
At first, the store faltered. After some management turnover, the new owners started selling cheaper goods and emphasizing lower prices than competitors. This did not resonate with Rhodes's customer base. The store was so close to insolvency that Henry attempted unsuccessfully to buy it back. Instead, in 1933, John J. Reilly of Western Department Stores purchased Rhodes Brothers. The store once again flourished. This was the era of "All Rhodes lead to Rhodes" plastered on billboards in Tacoma. The store was touted as a downtown shopping destination. In the 1940s the owners opened an additional building on Market Street. In 1957 they opened an additional store at Villa Plaza in Lakewood. In the 1960s, Western Department Stores decided to rebrand all its department stores as "Rhodes-Western," and so the Rhodes name was part a chain of 13 stores across the West Coast and Southwest.
In the late 1960s, many downtown department stores were struggling as shoppers shifted to suburban malls. A Honolulu-based company called Amfac Incorporated purchased Rhodes-Western and merged it with Liberty House Department Stores in 1969. When Amfac opened a Liberty House store at the Tacoma Mall in 1973, it meant less investment in the downtown store. The former Rhodes Brothers store in downtown Tacoma closed as a retail business in 1974. The University of Puget Sound owned the building from 1978 to 1999, and the State of Washington purchased it in 2001. As of 2024, the building is used as an office known as The Rhodes Center.
Henry Rhodes died in 1954 at the age of 91, at a time when his beloved downtown Rhodes Brothers store was still in its heyday as a celebrated icon of Tacoma retail. Charles Rhodes left Tacoma for California in the late 1940s but returned in 1958. He was the last surviving Rhodes brother. Charles died in 1964 at the age of 93.
Rhodes Brothers Ten Cent Stores in Seattle
William Rhodes was the leader of the Rhodes Brothers Ten Cent Stores in Seattle. He had volunteered to go to Alaska during the Klondike Gold Rush both to boost Rhodes Brothers in Tacoma and to gain experience running a business of his own. It was also around the time of the Klondike Gold Rush that Henry was turning Rhodes Brothers into a department store. William disagreed with this new direction, preferring instead the brothers' original concept of a coffee and tea business. In 1900, William moved to Seattle with $10,000 in capital and the blessing and financial support of Henry and Albert, who each made a 5 percent investment.
This new store was not immediately successful, and William was soon looking for ways to gain a better footing in the Seattle retail scene. Henry claimed to be the one who suggested the shift to a store selling everything at 5, 10, and 15 cents. While Henry was visiting family in Minneapolis, a "five and dime" store that had just opened was the talk of the town. He met with the store manager and found out that the idea was spreading throughout the Northeast and Midwest states but had not yet reached the West Coast. Henry was initially reluctant to pitch the concept to William, concerned that it would be undignified and unflattering to focus on low-priced goods. He relented, and in 1903 the store closed temporarily with a sign in the window reading "This Store Will Reopen Soon With a Complete Line of Merchandise to Sell at 5c, 10c and 15c – Nothing Higher" (Rhodes, 82). When the store reopened, Henry claimed that the police had to be called to contain the enthusiastic crowds.
The store's official name was Rhodes Brothers Company, usually shortened to Rhodes Bros. Co. in advertisements. "Ten Cent Store" was sometimes included as part of the name or otherwise included prominently in the marketing. The first store was located in Seattle on Second Avenue within the newly built Arcade Building, which housed multiple businesses and offices between Union and University Streets. This turned out to be a prime location. When Albert started his Seattle store, he chose the Arcade Building as well. While technically Rhodes Brothers Ten Cent store and Rhodes Company department store were separate businesses, the connection and support between the stores benefited them both.
A second Rhodes Ten Cent store opened in Seattle in December of 1924. The new store was at Fourth Avenue and Pike Street, an area touted as the "new shopping district" that marked a shift of Seattle's retail core from Second Avenue to slightly uptown on Pike Street and Pine Street. That store closed in 1929, most likely a victim of the stock market crash and other economic forces. By this time, the concept of a ten cent store or "five and dime" had caught on in the region and the Rhodes faced competition. Woolworth's came to Seattle in 1907 and built a major new building in 1935. There was soon a whole section in the city directories for "Department Stores – 5c to $1.00" with many of them using "ten cents" in the name. With inflation, the "ten cent" designation was no longer an accurate description of merchandise prices. Prices could even exceed one dollar, but the central idea of bargains and affordability continued. In the early 1940s, the Rhodes opened two more Ten Cent stores: one at 4509 University Way and another at 6410 Roosevelt Way.
William had married Claudia Altenburg (1868-1969) in 1892, and the couple had two children, William J. Rhodes (1900-1962) and Florence Rhodes Wilton (1894-1992). In adulthood, the younger William became involved in the business. William senior continued as the president of the Rhodes Brothers Ten Cent Stores until his death by suicide in 1945 at the age of 77. He had been ill for five years prior to his death.
In 1958, son William J. Rhodes sold the four Rhodes Ten Cent Stores to Modern Home Builders of Lynnwood. At that time there were four Seattle stores: Downtown, Broadway, Queen Anne, and Lake City. A Burien store was added in 1959. Modern Home Builders was new to retail. When the sale was announced, the company declared that it had no intention of making substantial changes. However, in the early 1960s, Rhodes Brothers Ten Cent Stores slowly faded away. The downtown store closed in 1961, and the other stores closed between 1962 and 1963.
The Rhodes Company in Seattle
In May 1907, Albert Rhodes started a new department store in Seattle called The Rhodes Company. Its first location was the Arcade building, which was also where William's Ten Cent store was located. In 1909, the store had already expanded in the building and had a total of 46,000 square feet.
The Rhodes store in Seattle was typically associated exclusively with Albert, but Henry claimed that both he and William were initially invested in the business. According to Henry's memoir, Albert was dissatisfied with being in a secondary position at Rhodes Tacoma, especially as Henry's role as president put him in the position of increased community leadership. A mutual decision was made to establish a new business in Seattle. It would be a separate corporation but linked through common ownership. In the 1907 articles of incorporation, the business was capitalized at $100,000. Albert and Henry each held 490 shares (at $1,000 each) and William held 20 shares. When the store expanded in 1909, media coverage of that expansion described the two Seattle Rhodes stores together. Albert was quoted as saying, "No less than 78,000 people enter our two stores, the department store and the 10-cent store, both in the center of the Arcade block during a week's time" ("Department Store Enlarged…").
In 1913, Henry withdrew his shares from the Seattle store, and Albert withdrew his from Tacoma, and each brother became the full owner of his own store. It appears that the decision was mutual, although it is unknown when William sold or withdrew his shares in his brothers' stores. The Rhodes Store in Seattle was thriving. By 1920 it occupied three floors of the Arcade building and had more than 400 employees.
Albert had met and married his wife Harriet A. Williams (1872-1944) in Dalles, Oregon, in 1893. The couple did not have any children. Based on Harriet's later involvement in the business, it is likely that she was active in the early years as well. In 1915 the couple moved into a new home on 10th Avenue on Capitol Hill in Seattle. Known as the Rhodes Mansion, the Renaissance revival home was designed by architect Augustus Warren Gould (1872-1922) and features a white terra-cotta exterior and a sweeping view of Lake Union.
Albert's dream of increased civic engagement and leadership was achieved when he moved to Seattle. One of his most prominent roles was as president of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce during the crucial war years of 1917 to 1918. Albert stated:
"My idea of a poor citizen is one who wants to take all the money he can out of a community and give nothing in the way of public service in return. My regret is that, although I have tried to take a most active part in community life, that I have not given more of myself to my community and state. Every man owes public service, without pay or reward, to his community" ("A. J. Rhodes Called by Death…").
In 1921 Albert died unexpectedly of influenza while on a business trip in New York City. His death made front-page news in Seattle. The Seattle Times declared that "no man has left a greater impress on Seattle in the present generation than Albert J. Rhodes" ("Influenza Proves Fatal …"). While traveling on the East Coast at the time of his death, Albert had been lobbying for the interests of Washington state and Seattle. Before arriving in New York City, he had spent time in Washington, D.C., meeting with government officials to campaign for Seattle's shipping interests and the construction of the Sand Point Naval Station.
Music and More Than Just Retail
After Albert's death, his wife Harriet stepped in as president and led the store for the next 23 years. This swift transition of leadership suggests that she had already been significantly involved in running the store before Albert's death. She was reportedly beloved by the employees and was committed to keeping the store a "home-owned" Seattle institution. She couldn't do it alone, and so she enlisted her nephew Carl B. Williams to come to Seattle and join the store's leadership. He started as advertising manager and treasurer and became vice president and general manager by 1928.
In the early twentieth century, the most successful department stores were more than just retail establishments. They touted themselves as tourist destinations, gathering places, and trailblazers in new customer experiences. In 1923, the Rhodes Company store started one of the earliest radio stations in Seattle. It began as KDZE and became KFOA in 1924. The store employed a staff just to work in the station and became known for offering live music with an orchestra in the afternoons. In 1925 the KFOA radio station successfully produced Seattle's first long-distance radio show by broadcasting a live event at the Monte Cristo Hotel in Everett.
Twenty years after the department store was founded, The Rhodes Company opened a new, expanded store on the same site in December of 1927. In addition to expanded space and many modernizations and improvements, perhaps the most newsworthy change was the inclusion of an elaborate Aeolian pipe organ. The organ was installed as a memorial to Albert from Harriet. Apparently, Albert had heard the organ at Wanamaker's Department Store in Philadelphia on the same 1921 trip in which he had taken ill and died. Albert had written to his family about his dream of installing an organ next time Rhodes expanded. The organ made the store a destination. Daily concerts entertained shoppers and tourists for more than 30 years.
Harriet Rhodes died in 1944 and her nephew Carl B. Williams took over as president. In 1956 Rhodes, now rebranded as "Rhodes of Seattle" opened a second location in the University Village shopping center. Two suburban locations opened in 1964: one at the Crossroads Mall in Bellevue and one at Forest Park Center in Lake Forest Park.
In 1967, Williams negotiated the sale of the four Seattle Rhodes stores to Pay 'n Save, a drugstore chain owned by M. Lamont Bean (1924-2004), who also owned Ernst Hardware. The sale marked a new foray for the company into clothing and department store retail. When the Pay 'n Save acquisition was announced, company leadership also announced the closure of the Rhodes Company store in downtown Seattle. The Rhodes Company store closed that next year and was renovated into an office building. In 1970, the remaining three Rhodes stores, along with Bell's of Burien, which Pay 'n Save had also purchased, were rebranded as Lamonts.
