The Jones Store Company was an American chain of department stores located in the Kansas City area formerly operated by Mercantile Stores Company and the St. Louis, Missouri-based May Co. The Jones Store Company was founded in 1887 as an 800-foot store in Stafford, Kansas by J. Logan Jones. In 1895 Jones opened a store at 6th and Main in the River Market neighborhood. In 1902 Jones leased a massive 500,000-square-foot seven-story building that took up an entire block at 12th Street and Main across the street from Bernheimer Bros. & Co. Jones declared bankruptcy in 1910 and the store was... taken over by New York interests. In 1919 the new owners acquired the merchandise from Bernheimer Brothers. The downtown flagship store remained in business until January 1998 even as other large retailers had left downtown. The building was demolished in 2005. The Jones Store became a division of Mercantile Stores Company in the early 1960s. It was acquired by May Department Stores in 1998 after the Dillard's acquisition of Mercantile, and integrated into the company's Famous-Barr division. On August 30, 2005, it became part of Federated with that company's acquisition of May.
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