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Elliotts Ladies Shop
1957
c.1957
200-202 E Main, 1950s-70s city assessor form, WHS_006_020a
200-202 E Main, 1950s-70s city assessor image, WHS_006_020b
1966
STOREFRONT BEFORE REMODEL
1966
08 11 ENTIRE STORE HAS
BEEN COMPLETELY REMODELED
The grand opening of a completely remodeled Elliotts Fashion Apparel store is scheduled for 10 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 11, according to Elliot Resneck, president of the firm.
Tomorrow’s ribbon cutting ceremony, marking the opening, will be held outside the store at 200 Main Street, at 10 o’clock, with Mayor Robert P. White presiding and with Gerald Mallach, president of the Watertown Association of Commerce among those present.
Resneck said that the store’s remodeling has taken four months. It features a completely new front. Red brick and natural-colored redwood are the primary materials used, with all new aluminum appointments and glass for the display windows. A new aluminum-faced canopy covering the sidewalk for the entire front provides weather protection as well as elegance.
Above the canopy, redwood and porcelain provide a background for the new, large Elliot’s electric sign.
New Sportswear
Department
Resneck stated that the inside of the store also had undergone extensive remodeling or redecorating, and an entirely new sportswear department has been created utilizing rough cedar board with hung decor panels for accent. The new lingerie and accessory departments feature antique woods with décor panels and applied décor molding. Vinyl wall fabrics have been applied on most curtain walls throughout the coat and dress departments.
All areas of the store have been painted, and a new thick, green, textured carpeting was laid throughout. The store’s feature colors are green, gold, and antique white.
In October Elliotts will celebrate its forty-second year in its present location under the ownership of the Resneck family. Elliotts was opened in 1924 by William V. Resneck in the west half of the present location [200 E Main]. In the early 1940’s the business was expanded to include the present area [202 E Main]. William Resneck operated the Watertown store and another store at Fond du Lac for many years. He sold the Fond du Lac unit in the late thirties. That store still carries the Elliotts name, but it has no connection with the Resneck organization. In 1938 Resneck opened Elliotts at Janesville.
Son Entered Business
In 1944 Elliott Resneck, his son, entered the business after military service, and in 1948 the two purchased The Model, Beaver Dam’s leading fashion store. This now is named Elliotts Model.
1966 INTERIOR SHOTS
08 02 
< < link to set interior images
1975
1975, Ruth Ebert mgr, WHS_005_280
1975, 200 E Main, rear of store, WHS_005_286
1984
06 09 Elliotts Clothing Store caters to all types of women, but one of its customers Saturday afternoon couldn’t find anything in her size. The customer, who literally crashed into and out of the store at about 12:30 p.m., was a 165-pound doe. The frightened deer had apparently been bumped by a car in front of the store at 200 Main Street and then crashed through Elliotts’ east front door, cutting itself badly in the process, store manager Debbi Henrichs said. With about 30 stunned salespeople and customers watching, the deer raced to the back of the store and into a storage room, where it made a shambles of things trying to get out. It made its way into a second storage room and then into a dressing room with the same results.
1985
03 13 ELLIOTTS
RUMMAGE SALE EVENT
1989
12 08 Maurices
Elliotts Store Inc. announced the sale of its Watertown store, located at 200 E. Main St., effective in January. The women’s apparel store has been a fixture in downtown Watertown for about 65 years. “It was a very difficult decision to make,” said Robert Graf, president of Elliotts Fashions Inc. “We still will be able to service our Elliotts’ customers from our Oconomowoc location in Whitman Park.” After the store closes in January, it will undergo a brief remodeling project and open as a Maurices store. “Retailing has had many changes in the past year and we need to move with them,” Graf said. “The customers of Watertown over the years have been wonderful and we’ll miss them.”
History of Watertown, Wisconsin