The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-10-13
Location
 Eter Place For Business
bn of w. K. Nolan Now
 Business on Fairfield Avenue. = His Move - Significant.

lecia1 interest attaches to
 lmoval of the shoe bus
 hm K. Nolan from 1926
 10 fSS Fairfield avenue.
 bf the hundreds of mer-4
 Establishments in Bridge
 kind and another, this
 in existence longer than
 hducted under a personal
 There has been a Nolan
 nee 1856, continuously.
 years ago. Malcolm Mol
 Id been employed in the
 f Rodney Curtis, then the
 eern of its kind in the lit
 parked in business on his
 It in a store on Water
 ter street which has passed
 raorfinary changes since,
 bt only the principal bus
 but seemed destined to
 Indefinitely.
 foHan, however, was one of
 few Bridgeport business men
 period who foresaw that the
 development of the city's re-
 ction wss bound to be away
 the water front, and in the
 just preceding the civil war he
 5lis business to what was then
 ain street.
 ends and fellow merchants re-
 rated. saying You're going clean
 fto the countryi There won't be
 Ausiness to amount to anything
 sr for a hundred years! But
 s only one Of the pioneers in a ov nent that soon converted Main Ire iHto the most important bus knee |th.broughfare of the city, while IWx1 E street was presently given over |art Ely to wholesale trade and the |x1nds of business characterfstic of a ~Eter front neighborhood.
 On Main street the elder Mollan |Gpeedffy built up a prosperous busi- 11ss- He was a unique advertiser, Employing in that service very real ients in versffoation and writing all .44s advertise sementS in rhyme. He made the foundation of his business '4bscIute, unyieiding rectitude-was what is called nowadays four oquare man-and throughout his life onjoyed in peculiar degree the respect = Bridgeport business men and of the &pmmunity.
 # William K. Mollan entered his GRther's store as a boy in 1869, and during more than half a century has been Identified with the shoe trade of Bridgeport Five years after the labove date, in 1874, the Nolan store Twas removed to the building a few doors farther south, then numbered AS. later 3S4, and now 1926. In SS3 a partnership was formed and khe business conducted under the Firm name of Nolan & Son. In 1886 Malcolm Nolan died and shortly af- Aterward William took over the busi- 'ness, which he has conducted as sole lproprietor ever since.
 No kind of business has undergone .more revolutionary changes in the Hast half century than the manufac- fture and sale of footwear. But, early |every detail of the, trade, a wide and Intimate acquaintance with shoe man. yfacturers and their methods, com bined with any equally intimate ac- quaintance with the requirements of the purchasing public-and particu- larly, perhaps, with the sterliig busi- ness rectt ade and honor that came to him from his father-WIlliam K. Bridgeport for complete authorita- tiveTess in that branch of retail trade. So that his decision to move his busi- ness to Fairfield avenue, after it's (47 years occupancy of one store about in business circles for weeks as one of the most significant develop ments in a long time. Is history going to repeat itself? Is the pres ent Mollan merely leading the process hsion of high class retailers away from Main street as his father did. sixty years aSo, away from Water street? MT. Nolan was asked today whether he had found his change ir was raised seven thousand dollars g year" he replied. But if that in- crease were cancelled and I were of. fered the old store at the old rent wouldn't consider going back. Thi: e1s a better place to do business. have been hero long enough to find . out g
 Incidentally to his being the dear -of the shoe trade in the Park City and a. native of Bridgeport who Ina: grown and developed along with the development of his home town, MT Nolan enjoys a wide acquaintanc, and has numberleSS friends He i. Bil1y'' to scores of old time Bridge Dborters and to sportsmen all owe rConnecticlIt, for he is a real devote, Lof rod and gun and just recently com Epleted a. service of eight years ai gpresident of the Connecticut Stat Board of Fisheries and Game He f "a member of Hamilton Commander Knights Temp1ar; Pyramid Tenn pIe fNobles of the Mystic Shrine: Corin : thfan Lodge. F. and A. NJ; Arcanun Hodge, l. O. O. F.; Konckapotanaugl [ eErikA Red Mon and ho Rrnnl-l,