Gayfers Department Store opened in downtown Mobile, Alabama in 1896.
It sold clothing, shoes, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, and housewares. After being open for three short years, it caught fire and the entire inside with all it's inventory was destroyed. Just a year later it was rebuilt.
By the 1950's their business was booming and they opened five more branches across the South. During the 1960s Rosa Parks even worked at their Montgomery store.
In the 1970s their downtown Mobile store was expanded to an impressive 100,000 square feet, taking up nearly a city block.
However, by the mid-80s their luck had run out. Gayfers couldn't compete with stores like Sears and Dillard's, who were aggressively expanding into America's suburbs at that time.
In 1985 the flagship store in downtown Mobile went out of business. It was emptied, the windows boarded up and the doors chained. It has been bought and sold to different developers at various times but it's remained abandoned for 30 years.
I want to photograph inside the store but haven't figured out how I'm going to do that, yet. I'm working on it so stay tuned here.