In 1960, housewife Demaris Cash (Dee, to her friends) was forced to confront how she would provide for her family if she lost her husband, Travis, who had recently survived his second heart attack. The couple had two daughters: Janis, who had been diagnosed with muscular dystrophy, and Elaine. At a luncheon with friends, the idea of a consignment store was floated and soon Demaris was on the search for a business partner. 

Unlike Demaris, who had never held a job outside of the home, Grace Bigby was an experienced businesswoman. Her entrepreneurship began around 1945 when she learned to mount figure skating blades for her daughters. As her daughters grew it became wasteful to keep purchasing new skates, so she started a skate exchange and blade mounting enterprise. In 1966, she added a gift and card store to her ventures at 1115 Broadway in the converted old Northside Baptist church and she moved her skate business into the basement there. 

The Beginning

Grace and Demaris had never previously met, but after Grace heard of Demaris’s business idea they exchanged a phone call and soon were signing a lease for 529 Detroit Street. The old industrial brick building was originally constructed in 1869 as a steam wood planing mill, the second at that location after a previous mill had burned down. It was operated by John G. Miller, who lived next door at 521 Detroit Street. The large commercial space had lived many lives, having previously been home to a machine shop, furniture store, toy company, and a produce distributor. The pair’s plan to open a retail shop required a vision, and some remodeling. 

They named their store Treasure Mart and their first sale was a matter of fate. Demaris had learned that her daughter’s dance instructor was looking for a chandelier. A sign was hung during construction to announce a future resale business. As painting was still underway a man who had taken notice of the upcoming store stopped to offer up a chandelier. Demaris was a pious woman and saw that her prayers had been answered; she brokered the exchange. 

Grace and Demaris’s partnership fit their strengths. Grace handled the financials and bookkeeping, while Demaris managed the inventory. After 15 years, family illness led Grace to leave the business and the Cashes stepped in. Treasure Mart became a family corporation owned with daughters Janis and Elaine, along with Elaine’s husband, Carl Johns.

The Business

Treasure Mart’s sales floor encompassed the building’s three stories and a garage. Each level was filled to the brim with furniture, antiques, collectibles, and home decor of all sizes and eras. Items were brought in by consignors who paid an annual membership fee and earned a percentage of the item’s profit once it was sold. If something didn’t sell after a few months the price would be reduced, as would the profit. By 2018 the store had 1,000 consignors and a two-month wait for members looking to join. The specifics changed throughout the years, but in 2018 the annual fee was $25 and sellers earned 65 percent of the sold price, or 50 percent for items listed at less than $4.

Treasure Mart went through expansions and experiments throughout its 60 years. The company tried its hand at managing estate sales and used them as a means to collect inventory. The popularity of the consignment led to franchises and by 1979 Treasure Marts could be found in Elyria, Ohio; Kokomo, Indiana; Minneapolis; Bloomington, Illinois; and Flint. Travis Cash's health had improved and in 1962, soon after his heart attack that had spurred Demaris into starting Treasure Mart, he retired from his career as a Quaker Oil Salesman. In order to fill his time he began to manage a few racks of clothing at the store. In 1963, after outgrowing the allotted space, he founded “The Tree" for clothing consignment just up the block from Treasure Mart at 419 Detroit Street. 

The Second Generation

In 1982, twenty years after his retirement, Travis Cash passed away and Demaris became the proprietor of both Treasure Mart and The Tree. The following year the family was able to purchase Treasure Mart's building and the house next door that had once belonged to John G. Miller.  

When Treasure Mart was established Grace was 50 and Demaris was 55 -- ages when a person is more likely to be planning for retirement than entrepreneurship. Demaris could be found greeting customers at the store into her 80s, but after developing Alzheimer’s Disease she spent her final years at the Chelsea Retirement Center. She passed away in February of 2001, two weeks after Grace.

Elaine was teaching in St. Joseph, Michigan when she decided to come home to help her mother with the store in the summer of 1974. After that, she never left. Carl joined her soon after and the two took over the store’s management in 1995 as her mother’s health was declining, with Janis remaining as a co-owner.

After the loss of both parents, and increased competition from chain stores like Value World, Janis and Elaine made the difficult decision to close The Tree in 2005. Manager Josephine Watne was 83 and had been there for all but two of the store’s 43 years. 

The Treasure Mart remained an Ann Arbor staple, but the family confronted more obstacles in November of 2019 when Elaine was diagnosed with ALS. The Johnses had a balanced partnership like Demaris and Grace before them. Travis worked the floor and took care of billing and payroll while Elaine worked in the office. Alongside Elaine's diagnosis, Carl had gone through a series of pacemakers and their adult children had pursued careers of their own.

Treasure Mart had begun in response to health complications and now was ending for the same reasons. The building and business were listed for sale together in January of 2020 with the hopes of finding an owner to maintain the consignment.

The End

The surrounding neighborhood had changed immensely in the store’s 60 years. Treasure Mart moved in when it was still "The Old Neighborhood'' and industrial works could be found nearby. When it came time to sell, real estate in what's now known as “Kerrytown” was highly sought after. The Johnses acknowledged that their vision for the store’s continuance may lose out to the building's redevelopment potential. 

The store's listing closely pre-dated the COVID-19 pandemic precautions that disallowed dense in-person shopping. It was a historically bad time to get into business and no buyer came forward. The store's permanent closure was announced in a Facebook post in June of 2020.

At Treasure Mart, it was common for employee's tenures to last a decade, or multiple. Frequent customers and consignors could expect to be greeted by the same faces, including the Cash and Johns family members. Both generations of owners had emphasized that Treasure Mart was always about the community of people who shopped and worked there. The hundreds of comments and likes that flooded in to profess gratitude and well wishes in the wake of the imminent closure proved that to be true.

Five months later, in November of 2020, Elaine (Cash) Johns passed away. She was followed two years later by her sister Janis (Cash) Raber, who lived in Florida and, true to the family business, had established herself as an antique dealer. 

The building was purchased in 2021 by the nondenominational Redeemer Ann Arbor church for $2 million with plans to undertake renovations and restoration. Treasure Mart may be gone, but the cherished finds and relationships formed there remain throughout Ann Arbor.