Gone Shopping.

In many ways the Leonards were a bit ahead of their time, and frequently they were the first store in the area to add features.

Shortly after WWII, a store expansion brought the first escalator to Fort Worth – Obie Leonard designed it himself and found local craftsmen to build it. Mom remembers a store employee stationed at the bottom of the escalator to keep an eye on things and stop it. Just in case.

There’s a tread from one of the steps in the museum… with the key to the escalator.

There’s a display of Leonard Brothers Store Scrip… During the Great Depression, when FDR declared a ‘banking holiday’ to protect the banks from runs, money was scarce and cash scarcer. The Leonard brothers printed their own store scrip and instituted a check-cashing service – customers could bring in their paychecks and cash them for a mixture of Leonard dollars and US dollars. For several years, local stores took the scrip as well; they knew it was good and THEY shopped at Leonards, too.

There’s the Great Fort Worth Desegregation Riot of sixty-something, also known as the civil rights story that never was…

Seems that during the 50s and early 60s, even though the store had always served any customer who walked into the store, Leonards, like most stores and social institutions, segregated races with separate facilities for ‘white’ and ‘colored.’ One day in the early 60s, one of the Messrs. Leonard decided they just weren’t going to do that any more. Mr. Leonard (Don’t know whether it was Marvin or Obie) quietly ordered the signs removed, they came down, and that was more-or-less that.

Some time later, agitators from out of town (aren’t ALL agitators from out of town?) came in to “desegregate” the lunch counters of Fort Worth. They contacted the local press outlets to be sure their efforts did not go unnoticed. Their first (and last) stop was the lunch counter at Leonards, where they were politely and promptly served without undue comment. They stayed long enough for lunch, and then left. The event, such as it was, was duly reported in the press. End of story.

And then…there was The M&O Subway. The store itself closed when I was still young – but I DO remember The Subway. It wasn’t a long ride, but it was something… different. (Didn’t know at the time HOW different it was – the only privately owned subway in the US.)

Back a ways the Leonards downtown store got so big it created parking problems. BIG parking problems. So the Leonard brothers, sharp guys that they were, acquired a parking lot by the Trinity River, not too far from the store. But Fort Worth in summer gets warm and it was a little far to walk, so the store also acquired a fleet of buses. Nice, air-conditioned, free buses on a continuous shuttle loop from store to lot to store. And then THOSE became a traffic problem. There were thousands of customers on busy days here, sometimes tens of thousands, and fifty or so at a time on a bus brought its own issues.

So the brothers Leonard built the M&O Subway from the basement to the parking lot, and customers could ride in comfort – for free – from lot to store and back again. Underground. No traffic. No parking hassles. Free.

The subway ran from early to late; commuters could catch the subway to work and back out afterwards. There was a snack bar in the subway station where you could get coffee and a roll or a hot dog on your way to work, and the store would be open for you on your way home. The thinking among the store management was that with that setup, if they couldn’t sell most customers something most days, they were all in the wrong line of work.

Pure genius.

And, of course, during the Cold War the Subway served as a Civil Defense Shelter… one of the supply barrels is on display.