Lamonts Car Magnet

$6.99

GhostCorp Apparel - resurrecting iconic corporate ghosts.

Celebrate a memorable Pacific Northwest retailer with a Lamonts car magnet inspired by decades of department-store history. The Lamonts name appeared in 1970 as Pay 'n Save converted suburban Rhodes locations, connecting the chain to Rhodes' Seattle origins in 1907. Its journey included changing owners, store expansions, and financial restructuring, before Gottschalks acquired many remaining locations in 2000. For former customers and retail-history collectors, the name recalls the stores and shopping-center culture that shaped everyday life across the region.

Lamonts was a Seattle-founded department store chain launched in 1970, when Pay 'n Save renamed its suburban Rhodes stores. Rhodes began in Seattle in 1907, founded by Albert J. Rhodes, and later expanded to University Village in 1956, Bellevue's Crossroads Mall in July 1964, and Lake Forest Park in October 1964. Pay 'n Save acquired Rhodes in 1967 and Bell's of Burien in 1968; the stores became Lamonts, with the Burien store retaining the Bell's name alongside Lamonts until 1974. Lamonts remained a Pay 'n Save division until 1985, then came under Northern Pacific Corp. and was sold to Dallas-based Aris Corp. in 1989. Expansion and financial troubles led to Chapter 11 filings in 1995 and 2000. Gottschalks acquired 34 of the 38 remaining stores in 2000 and converted them to its own name. Gottschalks announced liquidation of its remaining locations on March 31, 2009. The original downtown Rhodes store was demolished in 2003.