Gee Bee Department Stores began in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, United States, in 1906 when the Glosser brothers opened a small one-room shop in the Franklin Building. The chain branched out in the 1960s with the opening of the suburban Gee Bee discount stores. Most of the stores, including the original, which retained the full Glosser name, remained open into the late 1980s- early 1990s. The chain operated 23 stores in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia at its peak in the 1980s. The Franklin Building was redeveloped in the mid-1990s. The Gee Bee locations were sold off over the years to other chain stores.
After the Glosser Brothers company was purchased by Value City Department Stores in May 1992, Many Gee Bee Stores were converted to the Value City format.
A Gee Bee Junior clothing store existed in Upper Yoder, Pennsylvania, also a suburb outside Johnstown. That store closed in 1993.
Famous quotes containing the words department stores, gee, bee, department and/or stores:
“While the focus in the landscape of Old World cities was commonly government structures, churches, or the residences of rulers, the landscape and the skyline of American cities have boasted their hotels, department stores, office buildings, apartments, and skyscrapers. In this grandeur, Americans have expressed their Booster Pride, their hopes for visitors and new settlers, and customers, for thriving commerce and industry.”
—Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)
“in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jing by gee by gosh by gum”
—E.E. (Edward Estlin)
“Where the bee sucks, there suck I,
In a cowslip’s bell I lie;
There I couch when owls do cry.
On the bat’s back I do fly
After summer merrily.
Merrily, merrily shall I live now,
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The African race evidently are made to excel in that department which lies between the sensuousness and the intellectual—what we call the elegant arts. These require rich and abundant animal nature, such as they possess; and if ever they become highly civilised, they will excel in music, dancing and elocution.”
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896)
“When their stores are full, idiots are considered wise.”
—Punjabi proverb, trans. by Gurinder Singh Mann.