Part 6 of a continuing series on Cincinnati’s grand downtown department stores.
By Paul A. Tenkotte
Special to NKyTribune
My parents used to speak of the old Alms and Doepke department store at 222 East Central Parkway in Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine neighborhood. It was a mammoth establishment, at its height encompassing 15 acres of floor space, once the second-largest store west of New York City and the largest in Cincinnati.
By 1904, historian Charles Greve, in his Centennial History of Cincinnati and Representative Citizens, declared the store to be “the leading wholesale and retail dry goods establishment in the state of Ohio” (Vol. II, p. 727). The building, stretching 400 feet from Main to Sycamore Streets, now serves as the home of the Hamilton County Department of Job and Family Services.
Alms and Doepke Dry Goods Store, along the Miami and Erie Canal, Cincinnati, early 1900s.
Located far from the other Downtown Cincinnati department stores, Alms and Doepke operated two small, free buses to transport customers in a continuous loop between McAlpin’s and Pogue’s department stores (West 4th Street), Rollman’s and Mabley and Carew department stores (both at 5th and Vine), Shillito’s department store (West 7th and Race Streets), and Alms and Doepke.
The bus was a smart business move on the part of the Over-the-Rhine establishment.
Alms and Doepke bore the names of its German-American founders, William F. Doepke (1838-1908) and brothers William H. (1843-1920) and Frederick H. (1839-1898) Alms. All three had served in the Union Army during the Civil War. They began their dry goods business at 470 Main Street in 1865. In about 1870, they moved to the northeast corner of Canal and Main Streets. In 1878, they built the first of what became four contiguous buildings housing their immense main store on the north side of the Miami & Erie Canal (formerly Canal Street; now Central Parkway). The first building was designed by the famous Cincinnati architects, Samuel H. Hannaford and Edwin R. Proctor. Six stories high, it was L-shaped, stretching 150 feet on what is now Central Parkway, 60 feet on Main Street, and 50 feet on Hunt Street. This impressive red-brick Second Empire style building features stone trim.
Alms and Doepke Department Store looking west from the northwest corner of Canal and Sycamore Streets. Note the canal in front of the store, and the warehouse and annex buildings on Hunt Street, behind the main complex. Source: Cuvier Press Club, Cincinnati, “The Queen City” (1914, p. 63).
A more restrained, flat-roofed, 7-story addition in 1886—designed by Samuel Hannaford—stretched north of the 1878 building along Main Street. An 1890 addition, by Samuel Hannaford & Sons, extended the store 70 feet further east along the canal. The final main store extension, a buff-brick, fireproof building on the northwest corner of Canal and Sycamore Streets, was completed in 1906, and designed by the nationally recognized architectural firm of Daniel H. Burnham & Company of Chicago, Illinois.
Alms and Doepke also featured annex and warehouse buildings behind and north of the main store, along old Hunt Street. Two of the annex buildings, dating from circa 1889 (6 stories and connected to the main store via a bridge) and 1897 (7 stories), have since been demolished.
By the early 1950s, Over-the-Rhine was declining as a residential neighborhood, as basin residents moved out into the sprawling suburbs of Cincinnati. New stores and shopping centers followed the suburbanites, slowly cutting into the heart of the commercial district. In 1955, the old Alms and Doepke department store, which had not opened any suburban branches, closed. The building was restored in 1995 by GBBN Architects.
We want to learn more about the history of your business, church, school, or organization in our region (Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky). If you would like to share your rich history with others, please contact the editor of “Our Rich History,” Paul A. Tenkotte, at tenkottep@nku.edu. Paul A. Tenkotte is Professor of History and Director of the Center for Public History at NKU.
Alms and Doepke Department Store is seen to the right along Central Parkway, a boulevard which replaced the canal upon its completion in 1928.
Featured photo: Alms and Doepke Department Store is seen to the right along Central Parkway, a boulevard which replaced the canal upon its completion in 1928.
