Haltom's Jewelers Is Closing After 131 Years
Haltom's Jewelers is shuttering after 131 years in business, owners Jack and Ladye Ann Miller announced in a mailing sent to customers.
The mailing didn't specify what day the iconic company's three stores would shut down, only that it would be "closing the doors forever." A going-out-of-business sale is forthcoming.
Haltom's flagship store has been in the old Knights of Pythias building, on the corner of Third and Main streets, in Sundance Square since 1988. Jack Miller bought the company in 1983.
"We are opening the vaults and offering unique pieces even our loyal customers have never seen," Jack Miller said in the mailing. "Everything must be sold quickly, so we are putting forth our best discounts. We are eager to celebrate Haltom's legacy and blow people away with this final sale."
Miller is the son of the founder of the now defunct Edisons, a Fort Worth department store founded in 1958 and so named because the telephone exchange in downtown was called the edison exchange.
Jack Miller began in the jewelry business while attending college at night and working for his father during the day. He earned a master's degree in finance from TCU in the early 1970s. In 1976, he was named president and CEO of Edisons.
He left the store in 1983 to buy Haltom's.
"The Haltom fellows were ready to count their pile of marbles and move on, and I was ready to make a move," Miller said at the time.
It was George W. Haltom, namesake of Haltom City, who founded the first store in Bowie in 1893.
Haltom, born in 1872, was raised on a farm in Arkansas, near the Texas border. When he was of age to make decisions for himself, he said to hell with farming, the noblest of professions that not just everybody is cut out for.
He tried life as a cobbler and finally settled on the trade of watchmaking.
"He knew that the basic tools were a pair of tweezers and a screwdriver," wrote the late Mike Nichols, author of " Hometown by Handlebar ." He pulled a brass nail from a wooden water bucket and with a file fashioned tweezers.
He traded a gun he owned for a watch to teach himself how to repair a watch. (Another watch repairman ultimately taught him.)
He sold his business for $30 and moved to Bowie. He opened in Fort Worth in 1907. His brother ran the store until Haltom moved. In 1918, he installed the company's trademark clock.
"We have always worked hard for our family, employees, their families, and our customers," Ladye Ann Miller. "While we are closing the stores and ending this chapter, we will remain a part of this community that is so important to us."
