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Historic Houston Jewelry Stores


blue92

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Is there a Defunct Jewelry stores thread here?

Well 32 views so I guess that answers my question. Well in that case I'll start.

Micheal's Jewelers on Memorial Dr. and out of their home office location.

Gordon's in several mall locations.

Sweeney E Co. Jewelers owned by Gorden's also several mall locations.

United Jewelers on Voss

Sterling's Jewelers Westheimer & Gessner.

Houston Watch Co. downtown Houston.

Battelstein's on Shepherd and in Memorial mall

Joske's Town and Company Village

Klor's Jewelers in the Rice strip center on Greenbrier and Holcombe

Tenenbaum Jewelers in West Chase Shopping Center.

Wolf's dept. Store in the 5th ward.

Just a few to start with. I did watch repair for all of these stores during the 70s. There's more stores I did work for that I'll try to find. I specialized in Bulova Accutron repairs. At one time I had 28 stores I did work for.

Everyone feel free to add names of your favorite Jewelry store that is no longer around.

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Wasn't there a United Jewelers on Fannin in the 1980s?

There was several United Jewelers stores, they were a chain owned by Gordon's Jewelers, who's home office was there in Houston. Gordon's owned a 9 story building in downtown Houston on Fannin St. In the mid 90s Gordon's was bought out by Zales. Gordon's back in the 70s/80s owned Gordon's, United Jewelers, Sweeney E & Co. Jewelers, Linz Brothers Jewelers. I'm thinking there were a couple other chains they owned but the names don't come to mind at the moment.

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Corrigans.

Corrigan's was owned by a Houston family that started in 1922. Corrigan's was bought out by Zale's in the mid 50s. Regardless to what Wiki says, I know this because I worked for Houston Watch Co. that the original owners of Corrigan's started to stay in the jewelry business because of an agreement with Zale's not to use the Corrigan name to compete with them.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 years later...

From 1975 thu to 1979 I had my own wholesale watch repair business in Houston. I'm writing a personal blog of all the Jewelry stores & watch repair shops I did business with while I lived in Houston during that time. I need the a copy of the yellow page listings of those years. I know most libraries used to keep yellow page listings on micro-fish. Does anyone on here know of a way I could get those listings? All I need are the Jewelry store and watch repair listings, not the entire books listings.  TIA.

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  • 3 years later...

This thread was posted years ago, but I'd like to continue it by recalling Houston Jewelry in downtown and read a rather fascinating story where NASA officials bought some Omega or Bulova watches for testing and evaluation for all space missions, including Apollo moon missions. I also found a similar story that they went to Corrigan's jewelry store to buy some of the watches as well.

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IIRC there was a Mathis Jewelry on North Shepherd in the shopping center just across Garden Oaks Blvd. from the Sears store. My father bought a Bulova Accutron pocket watch as gift for me around 1976 from Mathis. Yelp lists a Mathis Jewelry on Westheimer but I doubt it is the same owner. Mr. Mathis was murdered in a robbery not long after my Dad bought the watch.

I wish I had seen blue92's post from October 21, 2011. I dropped the watch shortly after my Dad gave it to me. There was no apparent damage on the outside but it never ran right since. Are you still out there, blue?

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On 5/23/2019 at 9:49 PM, Specwriter said:

IIRC there was a Mathis Jewelry on North Shepherd in the shopping center just across Garden Oaks Blvd. from the Sears store. My father bought a Bulova Accutron pocket watch as gift for me around 1976 from Mathis. Yelp lists a Mathis Jewelry on Westheimer but I doubt it is the same owner. Mr. Mathis was murdered in a robbery not long after my Dad bought the watch.

I wish I had seen blue92's post from October 21, 2011. I dropped the watch shortly after my Dad gave it to me. There was no apparent damage on the outside but it never ran right since. Are you still out there, blue?

Still alive & kickin. I would guess the indexing is off since it was drooped.

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  • 4 months later...
  • 8 months later...

Hey looking to see if Blue92 is still out there.  I grew up in Houston in the 1970s, and my Mom and I were in a family owned jewelry store when it got robbed by three men with rifles (we were there to get her new watch fixed or resized).  I was 5 or 6 at the time, we were thinking it happened around January 1977.  My folks can't remember the name of the store, but they feel like it was at the corner of Holcombe and Braeswood.  I found an article in the Houston Chronicle from Jan 1977, saying that Corrigan's on University was held up on Jan 13, 1977, by three men with pistols (but my Mom distinctly remembers they had rifles when they walked in the door).  Do you remember a jewelry store in the mini mall at the corner of Holcombe/Braeswood? (or recall anything about this Jan 1977 robbery at Corrigan's?)

 

Attaching the article from Houston Chronicle and a map where Corrigan's was located.

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blue92, if you are still reading this forum I want to let you know I had the Bulova Accutron repaired several weeks ago and it appears to be keeping time as it should. What I paid for the repair in 2020 was probably more than the watch cost in 1976 but it has sentimental value since it was gift from my father.

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  • The title was changed to Jewelry Stores & Watch Repair Shops In The 1970s

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