Category:Hinterleiters Department Store

Hinterleiters was an early 20th Century department store, located at 633-635 Hamilton Street in Allentown, Pennsylvania. It was opened by Harry O. Shankweiler and Raymond W. Hinterleiter. Shankweiler was from Kutztown and Hinterleiter was the son of retailing family from Hazleton. The firm sold Dry Goods and ready-to-wear clothing, employing about 30 sales people.

The store's origins date to the C. F. Ritter & Company, a women's dress store. Ritter and Co. became R. W. Hinterleiter & Co on February 1, 1909 after Ritter and his partners retired after 35 years in the dry goods business. The store competed with the three earlier, established department stores in Allentown, Hess Brothers, H Leh & Company and W. R. Lawfer, later the Zollinger-Harned Department Store. It was also a smaller size, being in a two-lot structure built in the 1900s for a women's clothing store. In 1922, the business was no longer sustainable and the doors closed for the final time on June 30th. Raymond Hinterleiter died in 1943.

After it closed, 633-635 Hamilton became the F & W Grand Silver 5&10 variety store for the balance of the 1920s, then was subdivided into two retail stores and went though a series of owners and shops until 1959 when the 631-633-635 buildings on Hamilton Street were purchased by the Park & Shop consortium. Park & Shop subsequently raised the three structures and used it for a parking lot at Church & Hamilton Street.

In 1971 the property was purchased by First National Bank to expand its headquarters on Center Square. The parking lot and other structures neighboring it on the north side of the half-block between Church Street and the bank building were raised and replaced by an extension of the Bank building located on Center Square.

First National Bank closed in the early 1990s after a series of acquisitions and reorganization of the Allentown banking sector. For the next 20 years the structure was largely unused, having sporadic tenants using parts of the building. However as the large facility which was built for banking it had lost its purpose and fell into a state of disrepair. The entire complex was torn down in 2013. It is now the NIZ City Center Two building.

Object location	40° 36′ 08″ N, 75° 28′ 16″ W	View all coordinates using: OpenStreetMap	40.602222; -75.471111