In 1876, Joseph Smith Hyde, his son-in-law James Knox Polk Hall, and Andrew Kaul of St. Marys opened the Hall, Kaul, and Hyde Store in booming Ridgway, across the street from the Hyde Hotel. Hyde, one of Ridgway's most successful and affluent businessmen, had partnered with Hall and Kaul in lumbering, mining, banking, and commerce. The three-story department store served the growing community by selling food, dry goods, tools, clothing, and kitchen wares on its first two floors, while its third floor contained Ridgway's first opera house, which brought musicals, concerts, vaudeville shows, plays, and operas to town. Situated at the intersection of Broad and Main Streets, the store became a cornerstone of downtown life and a gathering place for community celebrations. A decade after Hyde's death in 1888, F.C., P.R. and C.H. Smith bought the store from William H. Hyde, beginning the Smith Brothers Company, one of the first and largest department store chains in western Pennsylvania. The original building was demolished in 1933. The Hall, Kaul, and Hyde partnership was also a law firm, and James Knox Polk Hall, admitted to the bar in 1866 after training in his brother John's law office, served as Elk County District Attorney for several years before leaving legal practice in 1883 for business, later serving two terms as congressman and as state senator from 1903 to 1912; his brother Harry Hall also studied law, became a state senator in 1890, and U.S. District Attorney for western Pennsylvania in 1893.