Few department stores symbolized the aspirations of a community or 
represented the identity of its citizens in a stronger or more enduring 
way than Leonards in Fort Worth, Texas. For over fifty years, Marvin 
Leonard, the store's founder, and his brother Obie ran a store that 
was always a unique place to shop. Customers also found a stunning 
array of goods—fur coats and canned tuna, pianos and tractors—and 
an environment that combined the spectacular with the familiar.

    But the story of Leonards goes beyond the store and the man who 
made it. For Marvin Leonard, downtown Fort Worth and Leonards 
were always intertwined. In the earliest years, Fort Worth's working 
families and rural West Texans shopped Leonards not only for 
bargains, but also because it was Fort Worth's place to meet and 
greet. Later, downtown's appeal slipped as rival suburban shopping 
areas grew, but Marvin Leonard refused to expand beyond one store 
and never left downtown.

    Leonards gave Fort Worth a special identity, a distinctiveness, and 
an attraction to the city's center. When Tandy bought Leonards and 
later sold it to Dillard's, Fort Worth's image and character changed.

_________________________________________________________

VICTORIA BUENGER, a clinical associate professor of 
management at Texas A&M University, studies strategy and 
competitive dynamics in retailing. WALTER L. BUENGER is head 
of the history department at Texas A&M University. They both live 
in Bryan, Texas.


Number Eleven: Kenneth E. Montague Series in Oil and Business 
History