Albert H. Martin  Page 631-632 - Albert H. Martin is president, treasurer and general manager of the Martin Stores Corporation, which conducts five retail clothing and furnishing goods stores in the city of Grand Rapids and which consistently lays claim to maintaining "Michigan’s largest stock of workingman’s clothes," in which line the corporation specializes, and in which it controls a large and important business in Grand Rapids, as well as a substantial mail-order service that extends into the most diverse section of the state. The general offices of this reliable and progressive business corporation are in the building at the corner of Weston and Ionia streets, and the locations of the five well-equipped stores are as here noted: Opposite the Union railroad depot, 1369 Plainfield avenue, 344 Leonard street, 239 Monroe avenue, and Monroe avenue at Crescent, the last named being conducted under the title of Benjamins, Incorporated. From an advertisement of the corporation are taken the following statements: "We make a real effort to supply every need of the workingman, and undoubtedly carry the largest stock of this kind in the state. And, furthermore, our prices are based on a forty-one-store buying power and quick cash turnover, which gives you the utmost money can buy." Albert H. Martin was born in Indianapolis, the fair capital city of Indiana, December 18, 1877, and is a son of Ezra G. Martin, who there established his home in 1839 and who for many years was there professor of classical languages in what is now Butler College. In Butler College, Albert H. Martin was graduated as a member of the class of 1895, and thereafter he was for some time associated with the Martin-Parry Company, then engaged in the manufacturing of wagons and buggies in Indianapolis. Later he became associated with Cassius D. Hauger, of Indianapolis, in founding the Martin-Hauger system of clothing stores, the enterprise having been initiated on a modest scale and with a partnership investment of only $1,400. With unique and effective service the business rapidly expanded in scope and importance, and eventually Mr. Hauger assumed active charge of the corporation’s southern stores, while Mr. Martin became the manager of the northern stores. From the Grand Rapids headquarters Mr. Martin now has executive control and general supervision of twenty-five stores – in Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana and Missouri, and including the five stores in Grand Rapids, where the business was initiated May 1, 1910, and where the corporation now utilizes 25,000 square feet of floor space in the large building at the corner of Ionia and Weston streets. The first store was at 239 Monroe avenue, and in 1913 the business was incorporated, with conjunctive expansion of operations. In 1919 the Martin Stores Corporation bought the large business of the F. O. Lindquist clothing stores at Muskegon, Alma and Lansing, and in 1922 it assumed control also of the well-established clothing, furnishing goods and custom tailoring business of Benjamins, Incorporated, an enterprise that was founded in Grand Rapids fully forty years ago. It has been the policy of the Martin Stores Corporation to make judicious investment in real estate in the various cities in which it operates, and thus it owns most of the buildings in which its various stores are established. This policy is one that makes for permanency and that shows loyalty to the various communities in which business is carried on, the while it stands in significant contrast to the policy followed by most of the other important concerns conducting systems of chain stores. Mr. Martin is a member of the National Retail Clothiers Association. He is valued as one of the loyal and liberal citizens and business men of Michigan’s fine "Valley City," and is here a member of the Peninsular Club and the Highland Country Club. He and his wife are zealous members of the Central Church of Christ, Disciples, in which he is chairman of the executive committee, besides which he is treasurer of the Michigan state missionary society of the religious denomination. In 1907 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Martin to Miss Harriet R. Hurst, of Indianapolis, and they have two children, Harry A. and Mary K.

Transcriber: Nancy Myers
Created: 6 January 2003