This Christmas week, we remember the 175th anniversary of a mainstay of the Canal Street holiday shopping scene for more than a century: D.H. Holmes. Daniel Henry Holmes opened his four-story flagship store in the 800 block of Canal in October 1849.
Holmes was an Ohio native who came to New Orleans and opened a store on Chartres Street in 1842. According to the Historic New Orleans Collection, Holmes was a direct importer of all types of textiles, from fine silks for evening gowns to rough cloth for clothing worn by enslaved people.
In 1849, he moved his business to a larger building on Canal. As Peggy Scott Laborde and John Magill explain in their book “Christmas in New Orleans,” that store was “decorated in the elaborate English Tudor Gothic style and to enter its rarefied halls was like walking into a cathedral of merchandising.” His son and son-in-law took over the management of the business when Holmes died in 1898 then reorganized and incorporated the business as D.H. Holmes Co., Ltd. in 1905.
D.H. Holmes eventually occupied the entire 800 block of Canal and included a restaurant (called Potpourri) and departments for women’s and men’s clothing, cosmetics, hosiery, household textiles, sporting goods and even hardware. By the turn of the 20th century, D. H. Holmes was the largest department store in the South and a landmark on Canal Street. This time of year, it was beloved for its elaborate Christmas decorations…