Thalhimer's traditions were most notable during the holiday season with visits from the sticker-distributing Snow Bear and, in later years, the arrival of Lego Land at the downtown Richmond store.

At one time, Carter Hawley Hale owned several notable department stores, including upscale Neiman-Marcus and John Wanamaker.

After poor financial results throughout the 1980s, and saddled by the effects of leveraged debt from fending off two leveraged buyout attempts, in 1990, Carter Hawley Hale decided to concentrate on its West Coast department stores such as The Broadway, The Emporium, and Capwell's and sold Thalhimers to St. Louis-based May Company for US$325 million.

[1] The Winston-Salem, North Carolina store, housed in the Sosnik-Morris-Early Commercial Block, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

The case of Raymond B. Randolph, Jr. v. Commonwealth of Virginia (1961) would test whether trespassing laws constituted a violation of free speech.