Forbes & Wallace

Forbes and Wallace was an American department store chain based in Springfield, Massachusetts.

The Forbes and Wallace Store was constructed by partners Alexander B. Forbes and Andrew Brabner Wallace in 1874 at the corner of Main and Vernon Streets, Springfield, Massachusetts.

In 1896 Forbes retired and Wallace became sole proprietor.

In 1905 the Store consisted of eight floors and had grown into a complex of six buildings, taking up the entire city block. Forbes & Wallace was considered Springfield's leading retail establishment. In 1970, it had a skywalk connecting it to the new 30 story Bay State West. Bay State West had a retail court which was also connected to Springfield's other leading private department store, Steiger's. 1976 the Store was closed and the buildings remained vacant until demolition in 1982.

In 1987 The Monarch Place was constructed on this site.

In the 1940s through the early 1970s, Forbes & Wallace also ran department stores in nearby Holyoke as McCauslan Waklen, and in Northampton as McCallum's. McCullum's former location is now the site of the successful indoor Thorne's Marketplace, which took over the vacant space in the late 1970s.

Forbes & Wallace also operated 60,000 square-foot store on the site of the present Home Depot in Chicopee, MA. Forbes & Wallace and the also defunct Two Guys, later to be a Bradlees, was one of the low-rent mall's two anchor stores. The Forbes & Wallace at Fairfield was closed in the mid-seventies, followed by the defunct Bradlees chain which had taken over the closed Two Guys opposite anchor store location in the mall.

The mall, then faced with competition from the new and massive Holyoke Mall at Ingleside, went into a long period of decline, and was closed and eventually torn down around 2002 after being shuttered for several years. The site is now a successful plaza featuring Home Depot, Staples, Sleepy's, a party shop and some other stores, anchored on the Bradlees side of the old mall with a Wal-Mart Super Center and ringed by Friendly's, Applebee's and a 99.

The only surviving independent department store in western Massachusetts of that era is Wilson's in Greenfield, MA, 40 miles north of Springfield.I

References

* [http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=126913 Monarch Place]
* [http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=225144 Forbes & Wallace]