Wichita’s golden age of retail
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By Leslie Chaffin Wichita’s downtown was the undisputed hub of the city with fashion forward shopping. As the country came out of the Great Depression and World War II brought a new era of prosperity, downtown retailers doubled down, expanding stores and creating a shopping mecca for south central Kansas. Wichita companies had benefitted from the industrial production during the war, and women who had taken jobs during the 1940s had their own income. Bob Walterscheid, who had a small cigar and pipe shop downtown in the 1950s, noted, “You could get just about anything you needed. Most of them were family owned stores. Instead of shopping inside going through a mall, you walked from store to store. “One year for Christmas, I bought a lizard handbag and gloves for my wife
at Thurston’s,” he said. “She had them a long time.” Henry’s was located at Broadway and William in a 50,000-square-foot building. In 1948 it was almost futuristic in styling, from the bleached oak fixtures to the contemporary storefront. In a November Wichita Eagle article that year, the new store was declared Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum “a milestone in the Innes store at Christmastime in the 1930s. city’s commercial progress.” Henry’s, besides its contem- an hour later. porary architecture, included a womAt the time so called Blue Laws en’s clothing department and a boys’ in the city regulated store hours, so no department. stores were open on Sunday. During the 1950s and '60s retailers “It was fun to work in retail then,” were going big and became trendsetsaid Leslie Wilson, who started as secters with store design and fashion in retary in 1964 to founder and Presithe Midwest. dent Henry Levitt at Henry’s clothing You didn’t see advertised sales out- store. “We were like family; we’ve even side of the once-a-month Dollar Days had a few reunions since the stores that all the downtown merchants closed.” participated in, and they stayed open See Downtown, page 10
50 years later Vietnam vet still questions By Steven Ochsner Fifty years ago, barely 17 years old, I sat in an induction center in Kansas City across from a grizzled Navy Commander. I wasn’t there to be inducted, not yet anyway. I was there to interview for a Navy ROTC scholarship that I badly needed if I were to go to college. He asked what I thought of Vietnam and our war there. Vietnam? I couldn’t find Vietnam on a map! Somehow I knew enough to say that we needed to be there, to fight to stop the spread of Communism. I had heard that somewhere. It must have been the right answer because a few months later I was standing in front of a Navy Captain swearing an oath I was to swear many times over the next 50 years – “to support and defend the United States…” Since I was 17 my dad had to sign the papers for me. That day I became a member of the U.S. Armed Forces. The late ’60s were not a good time to be wearing a uniform on a college campus. We were called baby killers and worse. There were three types of See Vietnam, page 16
The active age wins 3 national awards By Fran Kentling The active age received two firstplace awards at the 2015 annual national convention of the North American Mature Publishers Association in late September. We were recognized for General Excellence and Most Improved, the only categories we entered. A panel of experts from the University of Missouri School of Journalism judged the competing publications. This year there were 204 entries submitted from 22 publishers in four
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divisions, determined by circulation. The active age is in Division C with circulation of 50,001 to 100,000. Judges comments included: General Excellence: Plenty of publications today are writing about transgender issues, but few are adding the layer of aging in the way that this publication did. What a surprise to read – and a good read, at that. There’s some honest writing and a wealth of information in the pages of this publication; I’m guessing readers don’t put it down quickly. The feature Who We
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Are really addresses the audience and engages them in current issues while offering data, too. Most Improved: A name change – The active age from Active aging – and a new masthead design adds appeal to this publication. At the September National Federation of Press Women’s national convention in Anchorage, Debbi Elmore, a freelance writer for the active age, won a first-place award for Feature Writing for her story on the Hank Is Wiser Brewery.
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