Founder

Hinshaw's was founded by Ezra Bushong Hinshaw, who was born 4 April 1899, in Windsor, North Carolina

Windsor, North Carolina

Windsor is a town in Bertie County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 2,283 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Bertie County...

 and raised in Boise, Idaho

Boise, Idaho

Boise is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho, as well as the county seat of Ada County. Located on the Boise River, it anchors the Boise City-Nampa metropolitan area and is the largest city between Salt Lake City, Utah and Portland, Oregon.As of the 2010 Census Bureau,...

. He was raised in the Quaker faith. Prior to opening his own store he had been a manager of a Montgomery Ward

Montgomery Ward

Montgomery Ward is an online retailer that carries the same name as the former American department store chain, founded as the world's #1 mail order business in 1872 by Aaron Montgomery Ward, and which went out of business in 2001...

 store and, after relocating to California, became the president of the C.C. Anderson Department Store, a local company in Whittier

Whittier, California

Whittier is a city in Los Angeles County, California about southeast of Los Angeles. The city had a population of 85,331 at the 2010 census, up from 83,680 as of the 2000 census, and encompasses 14.7 square miles . Like nearby Montebello, the city constitutes part of the Gateway Cities...

.http://www.rawbw.com/~hinshaw/cgi-bin/id?1374

Locations

The first Hinshaw's location was on the southwest corner of Baldwin Avenue and Duarte in the Arcadia Hub shopping area of Arcadia, California

Arcadia, California

Arcadia is an affluent city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, and located approximately northeast of downtown Los Angeles in the San Gabriel Valley and at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains....

. This store opened in 1951, and ultimately grew to contain 125000 square feet (11,612.9 m²) of retail space. It was the main anchor of the Baldwin Avenue shopping strip, and the only large department store in Arcadia until a branch of The May Company

May Department Stores

The May Department Stores Company was a national department store chain in the United States, founded in 1877 by David May. The company ceased to exist in 2005 when it was merged with Federated Department Stores, Inc . Prior to the merger it was headquartered in Downtown St. Louis, Missouri...

 opened several years later.

In the mid-1950s, Hinshaw's opened a second branch, this in the new Whittier Quad Shopping Center in Whittier. Hinshaw's was one of two anchor stores in the quad, its complement being another branch of The May Company. The Whittier branch of Hinshaw's also had 125000 square feet (11,612.9 m²) of space. Both branches had multi-level parking garages despite their suburban locations.

The Whittier Quad shopping center was badly damaged by the Whittier Narrows earthquake

Whittier Narrows earthquake

The 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake struck the southern San Gabriel Valley and surrounding communities of southern California at 7:42 a.m. on October 1, 1987. The magnitude 5.9 earthquake was originally assigned a magnitude of 6.0 but was revised a few days later when additional data became...

 of 1987, but Hinshaw's building suffered the least damage and remained open as the center's only tenant for several years. Sales were poor, and remained down even after the rest of the Quad was rebuilt, and the company announced the store's closure in December 1991. The company had been at that time the last surviving independent department store chain in Los Angeles County. Hinshaw's Arcadia location remained open for a number of years after that, prospering for a while but ultimately closing in the face of competition from the nearby Westfield Santa Anita

Westfield Santa Anita

Westfield Santa Anita, formerly Santa Anita Fashion Park, is a shopping mall in Arcadia, California, owned by the Westfield Group. Its anchor stores are JCPenney, Macy's and Nordstrom. There is also an AMC Theatres multiplex and Dave & Buster's restaurant and entertainment venue.The mall's...

shopping center, which underwent a major expansion in the 1990s.