Bygone Business: Hale's Shoe Store

Hale's Shoe Store was well known to Rochester residents for nearly three decades.The business opened at 410 S. Main in 1929 after shoe store proprietor William A. Mow sold out the stock of his business, previously located in the same building.  Hale's was owned by R. Clifford Hale and his wife, Grace, who operated the store for about 18 years before selling it to Lavern D. Bravener; Bravener continued to do business under the familiar Hale's name.

In early 1953 Bravener sold a part interest in the store to Robert Leinenger.  Leinenger had been a salesman at Hale's chief local competitor, Zimmerman Shoes, which was located across Main Street from Hale's.  The new partners remodeled the store and held a grand re-opening in March 1953.  The ad shown here ran in the Rochester Clarion to announce the gala event.

By the late 1950s, Robert Leinenger had become the sole proprietor of the shoe store and changed its name to Leinenger's Footwear. When the store closed around 1963, it ended a run of nearly half a century of shoe selling at that location by the Mow, Hale and Leinenger stores.