Barker Bros.
Barker Bros. was a retailer of furniture, home furnishings, and housewares based in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded as Barker and Mueller in 1880, the business operated under various names through 1992.
History
Obadiah Truax Barker had owned upholstery and mattress shops in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Grand Rapids, Michigan.In 1880, Barker was visiting Los Angeles on a trip from Colorado Springs to San Jose, California, when he overheard an outraged Otto Müller at a horticultural exhibition complain about the high cost of furnishing his home from the only large furniture store in the city at the time. Barker approached Müller and together they founded a furniture shop on 112–114 N. Spring Street near the Los Angeles Plaza, called Barker and Mueller.
In 1880, Los Angeles was a town with a population of 11,183. Its population would increase tenfold in the next twenty years, and tenfold again, to over one million, in the 25 years after that.
In 1883, Barker bought out Müller and went into partnership with W. S. Allen, forming Barker & Allen, and moved to the Merced Theatre Building at 8–10 Main Street, also just off the Los Angeles Plaza. Barker bought out Allen that same year and the firm became O. T. Barker & Sons.
Later the store moved to 3rd & Spring streets at the Stimson Building, Los Angeles' first steel-frame building, where their rent of $1500 was ten times what they had paid on Main Street, a sign of the rapid growth of Los Angeles at the time.
In November 1909, they moved again – done overnight and widely reported – this time to 722 S. Broadway, the area which is now known as the Historic Core, the part of Broadway that was the main commercial street of Los Angeles from around 1910 until World War Two. The store had seven floors, of, plus basement and mezzanine, in all. Departments, besides home furniture, included office and bank furniture, floor coverings, draperies mattresses, upholstery, stoves and gas water heaters.