When Fischer Evans Jewelers opened at the corner of Market and Eighth streets in downtown Chattanooga, Ulysses S. Grant was president, Jesse James was robbing banks and the transcontinental railroad had been spiked into service just six months earlier.
Owner Clarke Glover says he’s awed “basically every day” by the history within the walls of the 150-year-old business, the oldest independently owned retail business in Chattanooga.
“A lot of the earlier stories have been lost over the years,” he says. “However, we have some images [of the store] from around 1906 that show grids of wires and carriages pulled by horses down Market Street, which is quite amazing.”
Glover can recount milestones from the store’s broader history and his own family’s association, which goes back 50 years. The Glovers are one of only four families to have owned and operated the store, providing thousands of watches, rings and other heirloom pieces to countless customers over a century and a half.
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