May 7, 2007

Wisconsin’s independent retailers work hard to surviveBy Barry AdamsWisconsin State Journal

WATERTOWN – The zipper was just 2 years old when Eli Fischer and a partner opened a clothing store on the west bank of the Rock River.

Now, after 112 years in this city’s downtown, Fischer’s Department Store is closing.

The store, believed to be the last family-owned department store in Wisconsin, is where confirmation students bought their first suits, high school students picked up gym uniforms and grooms rented tuxedos.

Over the last five years, it also has been a hub of creativity in an effort to fight off the end of a retail era. The clothing line was changed to more high-end products, an Internet retail Web site was created, the building was sold and floor space reduced from 15,000 to 3,000 square feet.

But the moves came at a time when most shopping for clothes is done at big-box retailers in Madison, Milwaukee and nearby Johnson Creek, and years after the departure of other downtown clothing stores like J.C. Penney, Kline’s, Kern’s and Krier’s Store for Men.

“It’s probably more sweet than bitter,” said Eli Fischer’s great-grandson, Todd Fischer, 40, the store’s general manager. “We look at what a great opportunity we had rather than the discouragement at the end.”

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