Mehr's Music & Novelty Store
Mehr's Music & Novelty Store was a music, instrument, novelty, costume and magic shop which operated for several decades in Birmingham.
The shop was first opened in 1919 as the Musical Exchange by Charles Mehr, a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania native who married the former Libbie Williams of Birmingham. It was located at 2027 2nd Avenue North
Libbie, a songwriter, scored a hit with "Alabama Blues", which was recorded by Mamie Smith after she was introduced to it at the Jefferson Theater in December 1921. Mehr's shop sold a range of "blues and popular music," including his wife's compositions as sheet music, and on Okeh Records. His shop also represented the E. E. Forbes & Sons piano company as agents, and sold phonographs or "talking machines."
Mehr renamed the business Mehr's Music Store and opened a second location in the Clark Building at 404 20th Street North in 1925. That December he advertised a full line of toys "right from Santa's own workshop" for sale.
In 1936 the shop was located at 2025 2nd Avenue North and promised "everything to liven-up the New Year's Eve party," including "horns, noise-makers, whistles, carnival hats, blow-outs, jokes and tricks."
From around 1937 until after 1949, Mehr's Music Store was located at 113 19th Street North. In 1955 the store was located at 1726 2nd Avenue North, but soon moved across the street to 1731 2nd Avenue North.
After Charles Mehr died in 1956, the business was taken up by siblings Wade and Geraldine Haley, who had clerked in the shop. When Ms Haley died, another sister, Grace Payne, with her husband W. C. Payne came to Birmingham to help Mr Haley run the store. Other family members helped out, as well.
The magic counter in back was presided over by a practicing magician who would teach the tricks to customers who had bought them, but only after swearing them to the "magician's code" of secrecy. Among those clerks were Vic Fichtner and Robert Chapman.
The Haley family sold the business to Chapman in the late 1960s. The store moved to upper level of the Century Plaza shopping mall in 1975 and changed its name to Tricks 'N Treats.
References
- "'Alabama Blues' By Local Songwriter Is Winning Praise" (May 22, 1922) Template:BP, p. 6
- "Birmingham Girl Makes Record" (September 24, 1922), The Birmingham News, p. 15
- "Dealer opens branch store." (June 6, 1925) Presto
- "Supplied With Toys." The Birmingham Age-Herald (December 7, 1925) p. 10
- Communication from Tom Stewart, nephew of the Haleys and Paynes (October 13, 2014)