Lion Store
| Company type | Department store |
|---|---|
| Industry | Retail |
| Founded | 1857 |
| Defunct | 1999 (Ceased operation as a legal entity in 2006) |
| Fate | Merged with Dillard's through Mercantile Stores |
| Successor | Dillard's |
| Headquarters | Toledo, Ohio |
| Products | Clothing, footwear, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, and housewares. |
| Parent | Mercantile Stores Company, Inc. |
| Website | www.dillards.com |
Lion Store (founded in 1857 as Frederick Eaton & Co. and incorporated in 1890 as The Lion Dry Goods Co.) was a Toledo, Ohio department store chain. Mercantile Stores operated the chain from 1914 until its 1998 acquisition by Dillard's, which retired the Lion nameplate in 1999.
Originally established as a downtown-based dry goods retailer, Lion evolved during the post-war period, establishing new stores during Toledo's suburbanization and closing the downtown store in 1980 amid urban decay. By 1998, the chain comprised three fashion apparel stores and two home furnishing stores in area shopping malls targeting middle to upper-middle income consumers.
Long a dominant Toledo retailer, Lion held an estimated thirty to forty percent market share in 1998. The store influenced the growth of Toledo's retail environment, with developers acknowledging that their projects hinged on whether Lion would become an anchor tenant. Lion's outsized influence on local consumers prompted one local retail executive to jokingly remark that "people born in Toledo are born with two things: a Social Security card and a Lion credit card."