Site of Thornton's Store

Thornton's own newspaper ads show the store at work. In December 1944 it advertised fur coats from $89.50 to $269, tax extra, costume jewelry, sterling-clasped pearls and batiste handkerchiefs, with gift folders furnished, and pitched a ladies' pass case as useful to defense workers. By November 1947 the Christmas promotion was Santa's Wonderland, with Santa installed at the store for the season and free parking nearby. Both ads gave the address as Fourth and Oak.

What the plaque says

Site of Thornton's Store Known throughout West Texas as "A city within itself," Thornton's Store was one of Abilene's leading businesses for nearly seven decades. E. L. Thornton (1896-1964) moved to Abilene from Arkansas in 1919, after service in World War I. He opened a fruit stand in 1919, followed by a grocery store in 1920. Joined by his two brothers, Thornton soon expanded his business. In 1925 he added dry goods, followed by a drug store and feed store in 1929. Radio and refrigeration departments were added in 1931. By 1937 Thornton's filled an entire block of Oak Street, adding a cafe, a beauty shop, and shoe department. In 1941 a franchise for selling new Studebaker cars was added. The one-story properties were renovated in 1947 into a four-story structure of more than 100,000 square feet. Thornton's was famous for its Christmas displays. In 1959 the largest fire in Abilene's history gutted the Thornton property. Reconstruction began at once. After the deaths of E. L. Thornton in 1964 and his son Charles Eugene Thornton in 1965, surviving family members sold their interests to a chain store based in St. Louis. Thornton's continued in business under new ownership until 1985. (1996)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Frontier Texas! — 0.4 mi
  Abilene's multimedia museum of the frontier as the settlers told it, beside the Texas and Pacific tracks the town was built on, and the official visitor center for the Texas Forts Trail.
• Buffalo Gap Historic Village — 12 mi
  The 1880 stone courthouse and jail of the county seat Abilene took away, with about twenty old buildings from around West Texas gathered around it since 1956.
• Fort Phantom Hill — 14 mi
  A field of lone stone chimneys north of Abilene, left by the fire after the Army left in 1854, later a stage stop and a buffalo-hide town of more than 500 people.
• Abilene State Park — 17 mi
  A pecan-shaded park on Elm Creek in the Callahan Divide south of Abilene, with red sandstone CCC buildings, a summer pool, a bird blind and yurts under the trees.

More markers nearby

• 45th Infantry Division at Camp Barkeley — steps away
• Taylor, Edward, James, & George — steps away
• Site of Curfew by John J. Clinton — 0.2 mi
• The Texas & Pacific Railway: First Railroad Across West Texas — 0.3 mi