John Joseph Merlin he wheeled about himself, with great facility to any part of the room." At an event held by Teresa Cornelys in Carlisle House, Soho Square, Merlin appeared somewhat disastrously on roller skates of his own invention. By April 1783 Merlin was putting his musical instruments and his automatons on display at his own museum. Advertisements invited readers to visit his Museum of Musical Instruments and Mechanical Inventions at No. 2, Princes Street, Hanover Square, London. Well-off Londoners could meet their friends at Merlin's Mechanical Museum in the afternoon or evening, pay to see the exhibits, and drink tea or coffee
Famous Footwear opportunity for the St. Louis-based Brown Shoe Company, which acquired the firm and immediately set about with plans for rapid expansion. By 1986 the chain consisted of 230 stores. In 1990, Famous Footwear launched a distribution center in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, near Madison. This was followed by another distribution center in Lebanon, Tennessee, constructed in 1993. Fueled by Brown Shoe Co. money, the chain had expanded to 722 stores in 44 states by the end of that year. Prior to 1974, due to its discounting policy Famous Footwear was unable to purchase footwear from the two leading athletic shoe giants