DUNLAP CO/THE history

Charles Schreiner & Company was established at this location on Water St in 1869.

The M. M. Cohn Company was established by Mark Mathias Cohn in 1874 in Arkadelphia, Arkansas.

Hilliard studied the map and picked out Wagoner as a likely town to grow, and he began offering merchandise for sale out of a covered wagon, which he drove there and back regularly, starting as early as 1880.

In addition to being Hilliard’s cousin, Hervy Taylor also became his brother-in-law when, in 1893, he married Julia’s sister Lou.

Around 1910, Lewis Edward “L.E.” Martin moved his family from Hardin, MO to Coweta to open a restaurant, Martin’s Cafe, which was located across the street from the Dunlap Brothers’ store.

Viola Marie Martin and Clyde Dunlap were married in 1915.

In 1916 Retha Martin left school at the age of 15 and joined the Dunlap Bros.’ business full time.

Ruel Martin, who had just been graduated from High School in 1917, became store manager.

The store was sold in 1921 to Fulford Dry Goods Company.

Retha married Ruth Russell Koch (she pronounced it “Cook”) in August of 1927.

John and Zeta Smock, (Zeta was Retha’s sister) who had married in 1934 and had been working in Eufaula where John was the manager, went to Seminole to run the store.

In 1936, Retha persuaded Ruel to move to the Eufaula store to take over the bookkeeping for the Company.

The Hobbs store reached $100,000 in sales in 1939.

The street was named for the same man from whom the original Midland store, Addison Wadley, had been purchased in 1941.

That line of credit was used to purchase the Addison Wadley Company of Midland, Texas in May of 1942.

Turley, in the spring of 1944, Mr.

The Lubbock store expanded at the Avenue H location in 1945 by taking over the adjacent space on the east, to the corner.

He had sold 40% of his store to Bill Dillard in 1949, who had sold his original store in Nashville, Arkansas to raise the money.

1958 – 1958, Pampa, TX, Friendly Men’s Shop, Merged into Dunlaps.

The store was sold in 1959 to Beall’s.

In 1960, Dillard’s had purchased Brown-Dunkin of Tulsa and again approached Dunlaps, this time with the proposal to sell his Tyler store (Mayer & Schmidt). Dunlaps was not having a good year.

The store was purchased out of bankruptcy for $945; however, no sales appeared on the Company books until 1962.

The store was sold in 1964 to Brice Martin, the store manager and Retha Martin’s cousin.

1967 – 1967, Lubbock, TX, 4th St, Sid Moore Interiors.

The original visit by Dunlaps management to discuss purchasing Ramsay’s was scheduled for May 12, 1970.

The Company’s offices were moved to Fort Worth, Texas in 1977.

Retha Martin died in 1981 as a result of an automobile accident, leaving the leadership of the Company to his sons, Reg and Edward, and to Tom Hoskins.

In 1988, this was the last of the original Stripling stores to close.

The Russell’s location at Golden Triangle Mall was sold in 1989 to Dillard’s, next door in the mall, to expand their men’s department.

The following recollections are the result of an interview with R.L. Turley on Tuesday, July 30, 1991, transcribed by Ret Martin.

The location was sold in 1994 to Steinmart.

When the form grew to 2 pages, it became Form D-2, which continued to be used in computerized form through the year 2000.

During that three-week period, everyone in Dunlaps’ management thought back to the meeting on September 12, 2001 and thought it might have been better to have started that GOB sale.

The payroll system was moved to ADP’s PCPW (PC Payroll for Windows) program in November 2002.

In March of 2003, the Company began buying imports through the Saks Inc.

The location was sold in 2004 to Gordon Brothers.

The store moved in 2006 to the Grandview Ave. location.