L. S. Ayres & Company

Ghost Corp Apparel — resurrecting iconic corporate ghosts.

Lyman S. Ayres bought a controlling interest in Indianapolis’s Trade Palace in 1872. He purchased his partner’s stake and adopted the L. S. Ayres & Company name in 1874; after Ayres died, son Frederic incorporated the business in 1896. The eight-story flagship at Washington and Meridian opened on October 2, 1905, putting a grand department store—and eventually its celebrated clock—at the city’s crossroads.

From its Indianapolis base, Ayres grew into a Midwestern retail fixture, adding suburban branches, specialty shops, and the Ayr-Way discount-store chain. Its downtown store supplied the rituals: the Tea Room, the Christmas Candle, Santa Claus Express, carollers, and the bronze cherub that still turns an ordinary intersection into a little seasonal theater. Retail had ambience once. Imagine that.

Our L. S. Ayres & Company collection celebrates the polished bags, elevator rides, lunch-counter lore, and holiday-window wonder of an Indianapolis original. Associated Dry Goods acquired Ayres in 1972; May Department Stores acquired Associated in 1986. After the downtown flagship closed in January 1992, the surviving stores were folded into May’s Famous-Barr operation. Federated acquired May in 2005, and the Ayres name disappeared as remaining stores converted to Macy’s in September 2006. The clock, thankfully, kept better time than corporate retail.