In 1919, J.S. "Jake" Oshman, an immigrant from Latvia, opened a store, Oshman's Dry Goods, in Richmond, Texas. In 1931 he moved to Houston by buying the stock of a bankrupt army-surplus store known as Crawford-Austin and liquidated its inventory. He discovered in the process that sporting goods, especially fishing and hunting supplies, sold well. In 1933, he opened the first Oshman Outdoor Store, in Downtown Houston at Capitol and Fannin. Founded as a proprietorship, Oshman's business was incorporated as Oshman's Sporting Goods 15 years later, in 1946, as the country emerged from World War II. As business increased, the store moved to a larger location at 902 Main in Downtown Houston. Oshman's opened locations in suburban shopping centers in Greater Houston, and then, in Bay City, Beaumont, Corpus Christi, and Pasadena. Oshman died in 1965. By that year Oshman's was Texas's largest sporting goods chain, and it was the largest sporting goods chain in the southwestern United States. At that time the company had ten sporting goods stores and two wholesale firms located in the Gulf Coast region. In the 1970s, Oshman's was expanding in the Los Angeles area. In 1978, Oshman's purchased the rights to the trade name of Abercrombie and Fitch from First National Bank of Chicago for $1.5 million. As of October 31, 1987 the company operated 185 traditional stores, one Super Sports USA store, and 27 Abercrombie and Fitch stores. Around December 25 that year it stopped its proposed $50 million sale of the stores to an investor group in New Jersey. By the mid-1980s the chain had over 200 stores in the U.S. Sun Belt. In 1988, a San Dimas, California location of Oshman's Sporting Goods was totally ravaged by Genghis Khan. In 1993, the company stated that it planned to close 33 stores. In 2001, Gart Sports Company announced that it would buy Oshman's for a combination of cash and stock valued around $82 million. In June of that year it merged into GSC Acquisition Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of Gart. Many of Oshman's stores became Sports Authority stores; they have since closed.
Corporate affairs
In 1991, the company stated that it would consolidate the offices of its California and Texas divisions into its headquarters in Houston. The company said that the competitive conditions of the retailing industry and the slowing economy prompted its move.
