H. & S. Pogue Company

Renowned architect Samuel Hannaford was chosen to design the company's flagship store in 1916, expanding the enterprise westward to the corner of Race Street, the result being a graceful Edwardian structure with an impressive six acres of selling space spread over seven floors.

In 1948, the 12-story, 110,000 square foot, Service Building would be constructed a block south of the store at the corner of Third and Race Streets, housing the growing business's clothing alterations, carpet, drapery, millinery (Pogue's creations regularly come up for sale on eBay), and upholstery workrooms; the print shop; fur storage; engraving and silver polishing; and watch repair.

Sensitive to the building's location on a prominent street in the heart of the financial district, the firm selected respected Cincinnati architect Henry Hake to craft a handsome brick tower similar in design to the striking modernist Terrace Plaza Hotel three blocks north of it and completed the same year.

As the decade drew to its close, Pogue's was firmly established as the region's finest department store, and second-largest after the John Shillito Company.

However, it was already apparent that the changes reshaping post-war America, with shoppers steadily moving to the suburbs and preferring automobiles rather than public transportation, were leading to the end of the single-location department store in an urban center.

The decision was made in 1961 to sell the business to Associated Dry Goods, an affiliation of upscale department stores founded in 1911 by several New York City-area retailers headed by Lord & Taylor.

Robinson (Los Angeles), The Diamond (Charleston WV), William Hengerer Company (Buffalo), and Sibley, Lindsey & Curr (Rochester).

"The Bridge" was an instant hit, with a version added to the Tri-County store opening directly into the shopping mall as Pogue’s Ice Cream Parlour.

Efforts to update the Pogue image were apparent in 1970 when suburban expansion continued with a 153,000 square foot three-level store in Northgate Mall.

Efforts to update the brand were evident in the 1972 holiday catalogue, which featured a caftan-clad woman strumming a guitar rather than Pogue's traditional Christmas-themed illustrated covers.

The creation of a series of second-level walkways, or skywalks in the local usage, in the early 1970s benefited the downtown Pogue's store more advantageously than its rivals.

Le Petit Cafe', an upscale food bar that featured a variety of pates, salads, and wines, would hold the same appeal for a new generation of fashionable Cincinnati shoppers that the Camargo Room had for their parents in a more genteel era.

Fourth Street Market gave the downtown store renewed vitality and a bustling lunchtime crowd that would, ironically, outlast Pogue's itself.

Following an ADG corporate mandate to better reach younger customers, Juniors was moved to the Main Floor with its own Fourth Street entrance, and many departments were discontinued including Appliances, Books, Draperies, the Home Planning Center, Paints, Records, and Toys.

The final Pogue's branch store would open in 1976, a modest 112,000 square foot location in Florence Mall, the chain's only venture into Kentucky and the only one without a furniture department or restaurant.

As the 1970s drew to a close, the Pogue's chain seemed destined for success with premier locations in the city's five top retail markets, most notably in a revitalized downtown Cincinnati.

But a harbinger of the difficult decade ahead was in 1978 when the Mabley & Carew stores, a rival of Pogue's dating to 1877, were purchased by Dayton-based Elder-Beerman and converted to their nameplate.

ADG's annual report to its shareholders would note that the first full year of the merger saw sales increase 22%, and profits nearly 50%, at the five Cincinnati-area stores, with market share being moved from all three major competitors (by then Elder-Beerman, McAlpin’s, and ShillitoRikes).

Ayres stores would also incorporate Pogue's successful Center for the Executive Woman, which had been noteworthy enough to earn the cover of an ADG annual report of the period.

The Samuel Hannaford-designed building on Fourth Street was demolished to make way for Tower Place Mall, which would fail and close in 2012 to be converted to a parking garage for the Netherland Plaza Hotel.

On February 1, 2021, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported that Duke Energy had served the owners of Carew Tower, by then bleeding tenant revenues, with a 10-day termination of service notice for lack of payment; by November foreclosure documents were filed on the landmark skyscraper.