Category:Zollinger-Harned Department Store

Object location	40° 36′ 10″ N, 75° 28′ 13″ W	View all coordinates using: OpenStreetMap	40.602778; -75.470278

Zollinger-Harned Company Building 

United States historic place
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Instance of	department store
Location	Pennsylvania
Architectural style	Neoclassical architecture
Heritage designation	National Register of Historic Places listed place (A, C, NRHP building, Zollinger-Harned Company Building, 1979–)
40° 36′ 10″ N, 75° 28′ 14″ W
Authority file  Q8073580 NRHP reference number: 79002288 Reasonator Scholia Wikidocumentaries PetScan statistics WikiMap Locator tool KML file WikiShootMe OpenStreetMap Search depicted

Allentown's Zollinger-Harned department store, has its origins in the dry goods firm of Lawfer & Steckel, founded by William R. Lawfer and W. R. Steckel in 1866 at 626 Hamilton Street (Corner of Church & Hamilton Streets). The store carried a large stock of Dry Goods, Notions and Groceries. The Business was continued by the original partners until 1874, when Mr. Steckel disposed of his interest to George W. Hartzell. Mr. Hartzell retired in 1876 and the firm was re-constituted as W.R. Lawfer & Company.

W.R. Lawfer expanded the business and purchased the larger buildings at 611 and 613 Hamilton Street. He combined the structures into one large building which opened in March, 1882. The firm sold a wide number of women's dresses, and coats. As the firm grew it expanded with books, toys, jewellery, kitchen crockery, carpets as well as men's and children's clothing. To accommodate this expansion, W.R. Lawfer expanded the store by first purchasing two properties at 12 and 16 North Sixth Street. All of these buildings were merged, forming an "T" shape, with the Hamilton Street buildings extending north to Court Street, the Sixth Street buildings merging into the Hamilton Street building on the right side of the property. The present-day Sovereign Building retains this basic design. A second expansion added the stores at 607 and 609 Hamilton Street to the store, with Lawfer advertising the store as "Allentown's Big Department Store".

Lawfer and John Wanamaker of Philadelphia were friends, as Lawfer had worked for Wanamaker in the 1850s and 1860s prior to opening his own store in Allentown. It was from Wanamaker's Department store that Lawfer began decorating his store, as early as 1904 at Christmas. Lawfer's was the first local department store to feature a separate toy department that it called “Toyland.” At the center of the toy display that Christmas was a 24-foot-tall, one ton figure it called “Santa Claus’ Father.” It is not known if this was an attempt to combine the English figure known as “Father Christmas” with Nast's character. On December 9, 1905 local newspapers ran the first announcement of Lawfer's live Santa Claus. “Visit Santa Claus at his Cave in Toyland,” it read. “If you haven’t paid Santa a visit in his pretty Toyland, you had better come soon. Santa remembers every little face, you know, and he says there are some chubby little folks on his list he hasn’t seen yet. Bring your letters and put them in the letter box in his cave.”

W. R. Lawfer passed suddenly on 11 September 1900 and the store was taken over by his sons, J. Harry Lawfer, John N. Lawfer, and Alvin W. Lawfer. They ran the business for the next several years when in 1903, J. Harry Lawfer retired from the firm, turning his share of the business to John N. Lawfer. John N Lawfer subsequently sold his share to Alvan Lawfer and he started his own carpet and drapery store at 709 Hamilton Street. In 1906 due to ill health, Alvin Lawfer sold a major interest in the store to Clarence J. Early, and the name was changed to Lawfer-Early. However the next year, with his health further failing Lawfer sold his interests to William C. Harned and the ownership was totally reorganized and the name changed to Harned-Early. In 1906 Nathan Folwell acquired the business from the Lawfers. Nathan also owned Collingwood Mills in Philadelphia. He sent his nephews (W.C. Harned and C.J. Early) to Allentown to establish the business. Around that time, Nathan also acquired 2 other department stores, one owned by W.R. Zollinger. He decided to use the name Zollinger for all 3 stores to establish a chain and the store again being renamed the Zollinger-Harned Company

Ownership of the Allentown store passed to Charles Folwell until 1960 when it was acquired by Allen Vollmer and Robert Harned. Allen Volmer later passed ownership to Donald Volmer. Zollinger-Harned filed for complete Bankruptcy on 30 January 1978, and closed its doors for the last time. Today the former department store building has been renovated into office space, and known as the Sovereign Building.