D. H. Holmes was a New Orleans department store and later a New Orleans based chain of department stores. The company was founded in 1842 by Daniel Henry Holmes, after whom it is named. In 1849 he moved his headquarters to Canal Street

Canal Street, New Orleans

Canal Street is a major thoroughfare in the city of New Orleans. Forming the upriver boundary of the city's oldest neighborhood, the French Quarter , it acted as the dividing line between the older French/Spanish Colonial-era city and the newer American Sector, today's Central Business District.The...

.

D.H. Holmes's main building on Canal Street was long considered a landmark, partly because of a clock on the front of the building. When Canal Street was a major shopping area, "under the clock at D.H. Holmes" was a proverbial place to meet someone. At the beginning of the novel A Confederacy of Dunces

A Confederacy of Dunces

A Confederacy of Dunces is a picaresque novel written by John Kennedy Toole, published by LSU Press in 1980, 11 years after the author's suicide. The book was published through the efforts of writer Walker Percy and Toole's mother Thelma Toole, quickly becoming a cult classic, and later a...

, Ignatius Reilly agrees to meet his mother there.

In 1989 D.H. Holmes was purchased by Dillard's

Dillard's

Dillard's, Inc. is a department store chain in the United States, with 330 stores in 29 states. Headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas, Dillard's locations are concentrated in Texas and Florida; with a major presence in other states including Arizona, Iowa, Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, Missouri,...

. The former main store of D.H. Holmes is now a hotel. It was formerly the Chateau Sonesta hotel, which was renamed in 2008 the Chateau Bourbon

Chateau Bourbon

Chateau Bourbon is a hotel in New Orleans, Louisiana.On October 15, 1849, Daniel Henry Holmes established the D.H. Holmes department store, which went on to become a very significant part of New Orleans history. Situated on Canal Street for 140 years, the store became a French Quarter landmark,...

, a Wyndham Historic Hotel.

External links

• http://www.statetax.org/Template.cfm?Section=Cases&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=5158D.H. Holmes lost a Supreme Court
  Supreme Court of the United States
  The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
  
   case on use tax
  Use tax
  A use tax is a type of excise tax levied in the United States. It is assessed upon otherwise "tax free" tangible personal property purchased by a resident of the assessing state for use, storage or consumption of goods in that state , regardless of where the purchase took place...
  
  in 1988 ]
• D.H. Holmes Toy Department, around 1930