May Company California

19th-century history

May Company California can trace its roots to the store that Asher Hamburger and his sons Moses, David and Solomon had established in Los Angeles after their recent move from Sacramento. This store first opened on October 29, 1881, in a 20-by-75-foot room on Main Street near Requena Street and was original known as The People's Store featuring clearly printed "One Price" tags.

In 1882, only one year later, Hamburger's moved to the Ponet-Bumiller Block at 45 North Spring Street (post-1890 numbering: 145 North Spring), southwest corner of Temple, in a space of 46 by 100 feet. Later, it expanded into the north half of the ground floor of the newly built Phillips Block, northwest corner of Spring and Franklin, then in 1887 into the south half. In April 1899 it added the Ponet store 20 feet to the north of the Bumiller Block.

In 1899, Hamburger's renovated and took over the entire Phillips Block, all four floors plus the cellar. The space officially opened June 1, 1899, and the store claimed at that time to have 3.5 acres (150,000 sq ft; 14,000 m2) of floor space and to be the largest retail store in the Western United States. Later Hamburger's added an additional 2,500 square feet (230 m2) onto its back side on New High Street

20th-century history

By the start of the 20th century, A. Hamburger & Sons had outgrown its Spring Street location, which had 520 employees working on five floors. The Hamburger family decided to build a much larger store at the southeast corner of Broadway and Eighth, a location that was outside of then current retail district. Construction started in 1905, with a grand opening held in 1908. This location, which was also known as the Great White Store, was the largest department store building west of Chicago at the time and would eventually become the flagship location for the May Company California. At the time that the Great White Store was opened, the store could boast of having one of the first escalators on the West Coast, several restaurants, a drug store, grocery store, bakery, fruit store, meat market, U.S. post office, telegraph office, barber shop, a dentist, a chiropractor, a medical doctor, an auditorium, an electricity and steam power plant in the basement that was large enough to support a city of 50,000 inhabitants, a private volunteer 120 men fire brigade, 13 acres of retail space (482,475 sq.ft., larger than all the department, clothing and dry goods stores in the city), and 1200 employees. The Los Angeles Public Library was also located on the third floor from 1908 until it was forced to move to a larger location when it outgrew the Hamburger space by 1913. For a short time, Woodbury Business College briefly was also located on the fifth floor. Circa 1912, there was a temporary free public menagerie on the fourth floor of 50 animals including a cassowary, a sun bear, an orangutan, a 28 ft (8.5 m)-long python, monkeys and iridescent birds.

The store continued to expand until it took up the entire block bounded by Broadway, Hill, 8th and 9th. In 1923, a nine-story addition was built on Hill Street. With the addition of a new nine-story, 250,000 sq ft (23,000 m2) building in 1930 it then measured over 1,000,000 sq ft (93,000 m2) of floor space. In the mid-1920s May Company also built a warehouse at Grand and Jefferson and in 1927 a nine-story parking garage at 9th and Hill streets.

Acquisition by May

On March 31, 1923, the Hamburgers sold their store to the May family of St. Louis for $8.5 million (~$121 million in 2024). Thomas and Wilbur May, sons of the founder of the May Company, were sent to manage the former Hamburger store. One of the first things that they did was to expand the store again by building adjacent additions on the other parts of the city block. After several more years, the May Company store eventually occupied almost the entire block between Broadway and Hill and between 8th and 9th Streets. The old Hamburger store was officially renamed the May Company in 1925.

Expansion

To keep pace with the extreme growth in population within Southern California during the Great Depression, May Company opened the first branch store in 1939 on Wilshire at Fairfax at a cost of $2 million (~$35.3 million in 2024).

After World War II, a second branch store was opened on October 10, 1947 along Crenshaw Boulevard at the northeast corner of Santa Barbara St. (now M. L. King Jr. Blvd.). The store would later be integrated into the Broadway-anchored Crenshaw Plaza directly across the street to the south.