Quote:
Originally Posted by JimPS
Western wear purveyor Riley & McCormick, one of Alberta’s oldest businesses established in 1901, is riding off into the sunset at the end of the month.
They have survived many cycles of Alberta boom and bust in their long history, but this time it's the end of the trail because few people are wearing cowboy duds anymore.
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Hey, that reminds me of another store that no longer exists.
How many remember the T. Eaton's catalogue?
We did all of our Christmas shopping via that catalogue. There really wasn't any other option back then.
They abandoned the catalogue sales in 1976 and closed their doors for good in 1999.
They were a big part of the homesteading era. They supplied isolated families like ours with clothing, furniture, musical instruments, various household items like kitchen and bath supplies and tools. And of course they sold a lot of toys.
We had a local store that sold dry goods and hardware only. The owner also bought fur. I sold a lot of squirrel pelts there between 1962 and 1968.
The money I earned was spent mostly at Eaton's, via catalogue order.
We could get some supplies from our local store and more from stores in town, but there weren't near as many stores then as there is now, and town was 98 miles away. On top of that, Eaton's offered things the local stores never did, and at a lower price.
A lot of folks today think nothing of driving a hundred miles but back then such a trip was a big deal.
Few homesteaders could afford a reliable vehicle, roads were primitive compared to today and most of all, money was hard to come by.
Even at 25 cents a gallon/5 cents a liter, fuel was too expensive to waste it making non essential trips to town. So we ordered what we needed from the Eaton's catalogue.