The Boston Store in Ottawa possesses advantages as a bargain house, well known to those who have been patrons the past three years, but probably unknown to many who will read of them for the first time in this special issue of the REPUBLICAN. This is one of eight similar houses owned by the firm Wallenstein & Cohn, whose headquarters and main store is located in Wichita, Kas. The branch houses are in Ottawa, Lawrence, Atchison and Emporia, Kas.; Nevada, Mo., and Guthrie and Norman, Okla.-eight stores in all. From the Wichita house, established in 1886, by a combination of Wallenstein and the Cohn brothers, who for years had been traveling salesmen, both retail and wholesale business is conducted, the retail business alone amounting to a quarter million dollars annually, and with three men on the road the jobbing trade of the house aggregates $150,000 per annum. Here are the advantages that this store possesses over many competitors. They have a New York office, No. 300 Church street, and buy all the goods for these eight stores direct from the manufacturers in such quantities that the values secured are unapproachable by other dealers. Dress goods, silk, linens, staples, notions, ladies’ and gents’ furnishing millinery, cloaks, ready made skirts, waists, etc., are displayed conspicuously in the large store building of the Boston Store with prices marked plainly on each article, and there is no deviation. These prices frequently are astonishing from the fact that other merchants often pay as much for the same goods laid down to them as the Boston Store offers them for to the public. Mr. M. B. Cohn, one of the originators of this great system of merchandising in Kansas, is manager of the Ottawa house, and informs us that the fall stock has arrived, and the cloak department, for which more space has been given in the store, is larger than ever in variety and excellence, with prices that win. On millinery, novelties and notions, the assortment and popular prices have only to be seen to be appreciated. Miss Blanch Barrett is cast, copying latest models and securing latest styles, and will be with the store again this season. The salient reasons for the advantages the Boston Store in Ottawa enjoys are, briefly, that the stock is selected by the main house which carries $150.000 worth of goods, and does a jobbing business, buying direct from the factories, and the only firm in this section that buys direct from New York. They have goods equally as cheap as jobbing houses in Kansas City, St. Joseph, or Chicago. The goods are of standard and high class. Quality and prices on display here speak louder than words. The Ottawa house was established three years ago, and Manager Cohn says, that like all the rest of their stores, it has come to stay. In the busy season a dozen or more salesladies and gentlemen are employed to wait on the trade. Success so far has been phenomenal and patronage has constantly increased. Reasons for this success are obvious, in view of the foregoing facts, and the people of Ottawa and surrounding country will be pleased to know that the Boston Store will continue to be a permanent feature of our mercantile interest, offering genuine bargains that can hardly be duplicated by most enthusiastic competitors. There are five buyers for the various departments of these houses, and one of them is constantly in the market thereby giving the Boston Store the advantage of receiving new goods daily.
Source: Ottawa Daily Republican Sep 5-9, 1898
Name of Business: Boston Store
Current Address: 223 S Main
Date Business Began: 1895
Persons: Cohn, M. B.