In the mid-1990s, the smell hit you before you were through the door. The music was louder than it needed to be, the lighting darker than any retailer had a practical reason to use, and the oversized black and white photographs in the windows stopped people mid-stride in malls across America.

Most of them had no idea the name above the door belonged to a man who had died on a yacht off Santa Barbara sixty years earlier, having spent three decades building a store that outfitted Theodore Roosevelt for an African safari and Ernest Hemingway for his fishing expeditions.

On June 16, 1930, Ezra Fitch died having left behind one of the most coherent and well-defined retail brands in New York. What that brand became afterward, through bankruptcy, reinvention, controversy, and a darkness that took decades to fully surface, is one of the more instructive arcs in American retail history.

From bsnsHistory, the daily podcast about the moments when business quietly reshaped the world.

Written and hosted by Ron Trucks. Research and editing by Rodney Russ. Sound design by Angela Cahoy. Music by Cody Martin and Soundstripe.

For more daily business stories, visit www.bsnsDAILYpodcasts.com