Chain Started as an Old-Fashioned General Store

The Buffums chain began in 1904, when two brothers from Illinois, Charles A. and Edwin E. Buffum, bought the Schilling Bros. Mercantile Store in Long Beach.

In a 1968 interview, Harry Buffum, Charles’ son and the longtime president and chairman of the chain, recalled that the original Buffums was a traditional general store, complete with “potbellied stove in the middle, yardage and notions on one side, men’s wear on the other and, up three steps at the rear of the store, ladies’ ready-to-wear.”

In 1950, Harry Buffum looked south, realized that the bedroom community of Orange County was about to begin booming and opened a Buffums in downtown Santa Ana--Orange County’s first major department store.

It took 11 more years for the two-store operation to become a real chain, with the opening in 1961 of a downsize specialty store near the Long Beach Marina. Six more stores quickly followed, including Buffums’ crown jewel at the Newport Beach Fashion Island center in 1967.

By 1974, when David Jones Ltd., an Australian retail chain, started a successful $21.5 million tender offer for Buffums--an offer that more than doubled the then-publicly traded company’s stock price to $17.50 from $8 per share--the chain had added three more stores.

Jones, which later took on a second Australian company as an equal partner in Buffums, built five more stores, including the Solana Beach store in San Diego County that is scheduled to open later this month.

As leading Southland retailers, the Buffums also quickly became fixtures in the area’s civic and social life.

Charles Buffum was mayor of Long Beach and his son, Harry, was a major civic activist and philanthropist.

Dorothy Buffum, Charles’ daughter, attended Stanford University and, in 1922, married Norman Chandler, son of Los Angeles Times Publisher Harry Chandler. Norman served as chairman of the publishing company from 1944 until 1966. During that period, Dorothy Buffum Chandler was a leading arts advocate and fund-raiser in Los Angeles. She is credited with raising $15 million to build the Music Center.