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LOCAL HISTORY: SILBERBERG PROVIDED FINE MEN'S FASHIONS

By Bob Kostoff

For many years in Niagara Falls men from all walks of life bought their fashionable clothing from the Silberberg Clothing store. It was considered one of the mainstay mercantile establishments in the once prosperous North End business section.

Silberberg men's furnishings store was founded in the Village of Lewiston in 1852 by Marcus Silberberg, who built a pack-peddling business into a leading clothing store.

The late Niagara Falls historian Edward T. Williams said Silberberg founded his business on principles of advertising, good quality clothing and courtesy, all elements that spell success.

Silberberg was a pioneer in the art of advertising in Niagara County. Williams wrote, "Every newspaper in Niagara Falls and the villages of Niagara County contained the Silberberg advertisements in the days when that was very unusual."

Silberberg brought his business to Niagara City in 1880. The Village of Niagara City was first called Bellevue and then Suspension Bridge, after engineer John A. Roebling built the famous bridge across the Niagara gorge to Canada.

Silberberg located his store on Main Street near Niagara Avenue. Main Street was called Lewiston Avenue until the village joined with Niagara Falls to become a city on March 17, 1892.

Silberberg then began advertising with a one-inch ad in the Niagara Sentinel, a weekly newspaper published by Col. Charles B. Gaskill, who moved to Niagara City from Wilson, where he had been born. Gaskill started the newspaper in 1860, but soon entered the Army to fight in the Civil War. Later, Silberberg instituted display advertising in newspapers.

The Sentinel was located across the street from the Silberberg store. The Sentinel later became the Suspension Bridge Journal, which was purchased in 1879 by Solon S. Pomroy and sold in 1897 to historian Williams.

This brought Williams into a personal connection with the store. When he began working at the Journal, he walked across the street to Silberberg's to buy a pair of green pants. He soon decided he didn't like the color and took the pants back.

He said the proprietor then was Louis S. Silberberg, son of the founder. He said Louis exchanged the pants without hesitation. From that time on, Williams wrote, "I had purchased every ready-made suit of clothes and every ready-made overcoat that I had worn and many other articles of men's furnishes at the Silberberg store."

Williams wrote about the store and Silberberg family in 1943, as Louis Silberberg approached his 80th birthday. Williams wrote, "Founded 11 years before he was born, the House of Silberberg is now headed at the age of four score years by Louis S. Silberberg who with his one surviving brother Gustave J. Silberberg is worthily sustaining and long has sustained and expanded the notable tradition of the house of Silberberg."

When Williams told Silberberg he had been buying his clothes at the store for 52 years, Silberberg remarked that "was a record with few if any parallels in his long business experience." That courteous response, Williams said, "reveals the secret of success of the House of Silberberg."

Silberberg was a Mason of Niagara River Lodge No. 785 for more than half a century.


Bob Kostoff has been reporting on the Niagara Frontier for four decades. He is a recognized authority on local history and is the author of several books. E-mail him at RKost1@aol.com.

Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com Aug. 12 2008