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Auerbach's: The Store that Performs What It Promises
After an arduous journey to Utah's Mormon frontier, three Jewish immigrant brothers built a flagship institution that lasted more than a century in downtown Salt Lake City. The F. Auerbach & Bros. story is one of personal challenges, Prussian folktales, perilous sea voyages, Wild West tenacity and those elegant and sophisticated fashions found on the second floor. Built along railroad tracks and dressing boomtown "Ladies of Aristocracy" in finery, Auerbach's tent stores evolved into one of the finest retailers in state history, providing something for everyone under one roof. Award-winning author and former Salt Lake Tribune columnist Eileen Hallet Stone brings to life the magical moments of the shopping dynasty that lasted until 1979.
240 pages, Paperback
Published September 17, 2018
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February 4, 2019
This is a peek into the background of Salt Lake City’s most famous department store, Auerbach’s, which opened in 1864 and survived several generations of ownership until 1979. It stood for most of its life on the southwest corner of 300 South and State Street. Three young Prussian brothers – Frederick, Theodore, and Samuel Auerbach – immigrated to the West in the 1850s and began selling dry goods in California mining camps. They later settled in Salt Lake City with their first Auerbach’s store on Main Street, then expanded to several stores in Utah, Nevada and Wyoming.
The Auerbachs were friends with LDS Church President Brigham Young, who even borrowed money from the Jewish family during one dry spell. They were well-known philanthropists – spreading their fortune around Salt Lake City in various projects such as St. Marks’ Hospital and the Ladies’ Hebrew Benevolent Society. They even sent money home to the people of their hometown in Fordon, Prussia. The stores they designed were works of art, always decorated sumptuously with the latest styles from New York and Europe: “The interiors aspired to become meticulously staged, departments with curves, columns, softness and personal space were associated with high-end fashion; those with diagonal floor plans invited more casual streams of customers.” Stone does a good job of including first-hand recollections of Auerbach’s store from Salt Lake residents who effusively remember the fun of shopping there. These recollections brought the store alive for me, but the book was strangely organized and I had trouble constructing the sequence of events in the Auerbach family life. The store began to decline after all three brothers died young and the succeeding generations struggled with the rise of suburban malls and economic downturns. A sad ending to a beautiful local business.
The Auerbachs were friends with LDS Church President Brigham Young, who even borrowed money from the Jewish family during one dry spell. They were well-known philanthropists – spreading their fortune around Salt Lake City in various projects such as St. Marks’ Hospital and the Ladies’ Hebrew Benevolent Society. They even sent money home to the people of their hometown in Fordon, Prussia. The stores they designed were works of art, always decorated sumptuously with the latest styles from New York and Europe: “The interiors aspired to become meticulously staged, departments with curves, columns, softness and personal space were associated with high-end fashion; those with diagonal floor plans invited more casual streams of customers.” Stone does a good job of including first-hand recollections of Auerbach’s store from Salt Lake residents who effusively remember the fun of shopping there. These recollections brought the store alive for me, but the book was strangely organized and I had trouble constructing the sequence of events in the Auerbach family life. The store began to decline after all three brothers died young and the succeeding generations struggled with the rise of suburban malls and economic downturns. A sad ending to a beautiful local business.
Displaying 1 of 1 review