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MILLNER’S DEPARTMENT STORE: “SYNONYMOUS WITH THE CITY IT SERVES”
J. R. Millner (1862-1915). Son of a prominent Amherst County merchant, J.
R. Millner came to Lynchburg as a young man, first working at W. W. Tyler & Co. and later with Guggenheimer & Co. In 1890, he opened his own dry goods store at 802 Main Street, which ultimately grew into an esteemed department store. Courtesy of the Millner family.
Millner’s Department Store amidst a bustling downtown Lynchburg, 1920s. This photo of Main Street and Millner’s Department Store shows the street
and sidewalks in a flurry of activity, a reminder that downtown Lynchburg was the place to go for business, shopping, and entertainment during the first half of the twentieth century. Courtesy of Vivian Williams.
18 LYNCH’S FERRY
A Downtown Fixture
The store’s founder James Richeson “J. R.” Millner (1862-1915) was the son of James Monroe Millner and Josephine Richeson of Amherst County, Virginia. His father, James, was a prominent merchant in a locality once called Mill- ner’s Store and later renamed Allwood.2 Entering the mercantile business as
his father had done before him, J. R. Millner moved to Lynchburg as a young man, finding work in two of the city’s dry goods stores, first with W. W. Tyler & Co. and later with Guggenheimer & Co.
ders for men’s suits made by a different firm. It gained a reputation as a helpful place for bachelors in need of mending or fashion advice provided by its female clerks. From this small beginning, the store grew, coming to be known as one of the finest department stores in the city and one of the largest in the state.3 Around 1903, the J. R. Millner Co., then located at 920 Main Street, called itself “The Busy Store.” It boasted of having “five retail floors” with numer- ous dry goods departments and of being “the only house of the kind devoting special attention” to ladies’ tailoring.4 The firm soon returned to its original location, occupying 802-804 Main Street, and there Millner’s remained a fixture of downtown shopping for half of a century.
BY BRANDI MARCHANT AND DOUGLAS HARVEY
A department store with a nearly seventy-year history
in Lynchburg, Millner’s evokes bygone days for many longtime residents—memories of a bustling downtown, paychecks earned, the joys of youth, personable sales clerks, and elegant and stylish merchandise. Founded
as a dry goods store in 1890, Millner’s came to be recognized as a premier Lynchburg department store and remained locally owned and operated until it merged with Richmond’s Miller & Rhoads in 1957. In 1954, a Millner’s advertisement stated: “In every city in America there is one department store who’s (sic) name is synonymous with the city it serves—in Lynchburg, it’s Millner’s, The Shopping Center.”1
In 1890, Millner opened his own dry goods store at 802 Main Street with three female clerks and a boy helper. This dry goods store dedicated half of one floor to general merchandise and the other half to “gent’s furnishings,” a department that sold menswear such as shirts and neckties while also taking or-
3 “J. R. Millner Passed Away This Morning,” April
30, 1915, J. R. Millner & Co. file, LMS; The News Sesquicentennial Edition, 1936, J. R. Millner & Co. file, LMS; “Amherst Native Millner’s Founder,” The News: Retail Merchants Anniversary Edition, March 21, 1954, LMS.
1 Advertisement in The News: Retail Merchants Anniversary Edition, March 21, 1954, LMS.
2 “The Late James M. Millner,” The News, April 11, 1894, JML.
4 Lynchburg: Its Interests and Industries (Lynchburg: J. P. Bell, 1903), 83 (pdf courtesy of Nancy Marion).