"First In Line" at Kmart

From 1975. Of course, three weeks later, these folks were covered with a foot of snow. But when the new Kmart finally opened, doggone it, they were first in line!

You have to admire that kind of tenacity.

Requiem for Randhurst

On September 30, northwest suburban Chicago’s historic Randhurst Mall, a fondly remembered part of my childhood, closed its doors for the last time. Soon the bulldozers will roll, tearing down the famous triangular center core of the mall, leaving only the (still open and operating) anchor stores standing. The mall is scheduled to reopen as Randhurst Village, an open air “lifestyle center”, in Spring 2010.

Although Randhurst’s day in the sun was brief – having opened in 1962, it was completely and permanently overshadowed less than ten years later with the 1971 opening of the gargantuan Woodfield Mall just 9 miles away in nearby Schaumburg, it was very influential early on. Randhurst was groundbreaking in a number of ways that are underappreciated today – in its location strategy, its ownership structure and most of all, its outstanding architectural design.

The idea for Randhurst was originally conceived by Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co., a downtown-Chicago based full-line department store with a rich 100-plus year history. With the tremendous growth of the suburbs, Carsons became acutely aware of the growing opportunities there, coupled with the hard fact that a large percentage of these new suburbanites would not be inclined to drive into the Loop to shop. Also in play was the competition factor – there was a definite need to maintain parity with their arch-rival (and State Street neighbor) Marshall Field & Company, who had recently opened their north suburban Old Orchard location and were underway with plans for Oakbrook Center in the western suburbs. Although Carsons had a couple of satellite stores to augment their State Street flagship – the very successful Edens Plaza location, opened in 1956 and another in west suburban Hillside that same year, the vast northwest suburbs, where no major shopping existed, beckoned.

(A decent sized strip mall, Mt. Prospect Plaza, would open in 1961, just down the street from Randhurst at the corner of Rand and Central roads. It contained a Goldblatt’s store, among others, and was also the site of the "Scanda House" restaurant, a fantastic smorgasbord place. Our family celebrated many special occasions there.)

In August 1958, Carsons announced its purchase of an 80-acre plot (an additional 28 acres would be added before construction started) at the intersection of Rand Road and Illinois Route 83 (Elmhurst Road) in the northwest suburb of Mount Prospect, where commissioned studies showed a population of 300,000 within a 25-minute drive and another 100,000 expected by 1965.

By early 1959, two more Chicago retail stalwarts had thrown in their lot on the new project – Wieboldt Stores Inc., and Montgomery Ward & Company. Wieboldt’s, another Chicago department store chain, had been in business for nearly 80 years at the time and had grown to 10 stores, including successful locations in suburban Evanston and River Forest. Of recent note was their very successful Harlem-Irving Plaza store, opened in 1957, which no doubt whetted the company’s appetite for more suburban expansion. Montgomery Ward, founded in Chicago in 1872, had long since become an American institution, but ironically had a negligible store presence in Chicago at the time. In a bizarre move, Montgomery Ward had frozen all store development in the mid-1940’s, and wouldn’t open a new retail unit until 1958! It’s an amazing story that I hope to discuss in more detail here someday. In 1957, Ward bought out The Fair, a small chain of department stores whose flagship was yet another fixture of State Street. In the 50’s, The Fair, which also had an Oak Park location, had added locations at Evergreen Plaza and at Old Orchard. Ward’s Randhurst store would open under The Fair nameplate.

In an unusual business arrangement for the time, the three retailers formed a joint venture, much the way competing railroads used to join together to build a “union station” in a given city. The new entity was named Randhurst Corporation, the name derived from site address at Rand and Elmhurst roads. Harold Spurway, a Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co. vice president, was put in charge of the new company. Randhurst Center (later termed Randhurst Mall) would be anchored by Carsons, Wieboldt’s and The Fair, and would house some 80-odd stores and seven restaurants, totaling over 1.2 million square feet. Downtown Chicago shopping was coming to the northwest suburbs!

To design Randhurst, the corporation hired the renowned architectural firm Victor Gruen Associates . The Austrian-born Gruen was based in New York City and had already made an impressive mark in the area of shopping center architecture, having previously designed Detroit’s Northland Mall for the J. L. Hudson Company, which opened in 1954, and the Southdale Shopping Center in the Minneapolis area which opened two years afterward. Gruen had a well-developed sense of the shopping mall as a transformative societal force, eventually writing a couple of books on the subject. Gruen’s ideal was an enclosed space, with optimum traffic patterns between stores.

Because of the three-anchor setup, a triangular plan for the mall became the obvious direction. A 1962 Architectural Forum article, which aptly dubbed Randhurst a “big pinwheel on the prairie”, gives some fascinating insight into Gruen’s design process for the layout – “The intensive use of galleria space evolved directly from the problem of tying together three large stores of about equal size. Gruen at first conceived a simple triangular pattern, but this left too much space in the central court. On the other hand, had the central court area been too greatly reduced, the passages reaching from the core to the large stores would have become too long, narrow and generally unattractive. Also, a straight triangle would not have drawn shoppers so effectively as does the pinwheel”. And so, Randhurst’s design was set – a (very) large pinwheel, with a 160 foot diameter domed galleria in the center.

A multi-level central court featured a sunken “bazaar level” and a mezzanine level in the center of the galleria. The bazaar level featured “Wieboldt’s Hobby Shop”, an annex of sorts to their main store, among others. There was also a second level around the perimeter of the galleria composed of office space, which many years later would be converted to retail space. Sculptures and stylized benches were an integral part of the package, and beneath it all was a basement service level.

An unconventional mall called for an unconventional groundbreaking, which was held in November 1960. Instead of the standard lineup of executives, shovels in hand to turn over a bit of dirt, a 60-year old barn on the property was ceremonially burned down. The $20 million project was underway. On August 16, 1962, Randhurst opened its doors to throngs of excited crowds. In addition to the three anchor stores, there were a number of other notables, including a Jewel Food Store, the outside entrance of which can be seen in photo number three above, and the inside entrance in pictured below. The inside entrance was particularly attractive, with its mosaic tile surround, oval welcome sign and translucent panels featuring the store logo. In 1970, the Jewel store was relocated to a free-standing unit at the edge of the Randhurst property. There was also an S.S. Kresge store, which I remember particularly well.

In short order, the mall would prove to be a smashing success, and many stores were added to the initial lineup in the first couple of years – Baskin, Maurice L. Rothschild and Lane Bryant, to name just a few. A year after the mall opened, in August 1963, Montgomery Ward changed the name of its Randhurst store from The Fair to (of course) Montgomery Ward, capitalizing on the store’s success to promote its main banner. The store’s merchandise offering was expanded by 40 percent and a restaurant was added as well, possibly to counter Carsons' popular Tartan Tray. Within a couple of years the remaining Fair stores would also assume the Wards name. In 1966, the Wieboldt’s store was expanded from 190,000 to 225,000 square feet, making it Randhurst’s largest store. (Wards had 154,000 and Carsons 200,000 square feet).

This was the Randhurst my family discovered when we moved to Mount Prospect in early 1966. It was a magical place to my young eyes – the galleria dimly lit as if to make the storefronts shine even brighter. The Le Petit Café, a particular favorite. The polished cement floors, with seams in the Randhurst triangular logo pattern. The great concave moon-like surface of the dome (composed of sprayed-on concrete) and the funky contour of the support columns. The majestic fountain in front of Montgomery Ward, the color coded lockers inside the main mall entrances (orange, blue and yellow, I believe), the cement benches and the many plants. Most important were the cement animal-shaped sculptures. Whether or not they were meant to be played on, they most certainly were - so much so that they had a patina by the time of my earliest memories in the late 60’s. Truly charming features were the parking lot reminder signs – Apple Lot, Grape Lot, Orange Lot, etc. , with modernist pictures of the corresponding fruit. Randhurst had personality.

Another fixture of my elementary school days was the Randhurst Cinema, a single-screen theatre which opened on a Randhurst outparcel in June 1965, premiering with John Wayne’s “In Harm’s Way”. It was developed and operated by General Cinema Corporation, a Boston area company who was then in the midst of a ferocious expansion drive to build theatres in shopping centers everywhere. Randhurst was the second of many theatres GCC would open in the Chicago area. Interestingly, the first was in Mount Prospect as well (they also owned a drive-in located on Route 66, which they would eventually sell to concentrate on shopping center theatres). Among the earliest movies I saw there were “The Battle of Britain” and “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” (the Peter O’Toole version). Of course, I saw a ton of Disney flicks there as well, including “Napoleon and Samantha” and “Herbie Rides Again”. I checked the most recent AFI Top 100 list, and unfortunately these two didn’t make it. Oh well, maybe next time around.

We continued to shop regularly at Randhurst until 1971, when two things happened. One, we moved a bit further away (we would return to the Mt. Prospect area less than two years later). Secondly, our hearts were stolen by a new mall – Woodfield – and things would never be the same. The largest mall in the world at the time of its opening, Woodfield had it all – Sears, JCPenney, Marshall Field’s, scads of other stores, and for me – Musicland and the Orange Bowl restaurant. It was all over but the shouting. Unfortunately for Randhurst, too many people felt the same way, although a loyal, local core of shoppers continued to hang in there. After Woodfield opened, Randhurst became a once-in-a-while stop, and by 1976 or so we barely darkened the door, despite the addition of some nice stores, including an Americana store, and the great Kroch’s & Brentano’s, Chicago’s bookstore of repute before the advent of Barnes and Noble.

In mid-1981, Randhurst Corporation sold out to Columbia, Maryland-based developer Rouse Company. Among many other projects, Rouse was involved in the early redevelopment of the near-abandoned Navy Pier to the shopping funland it is today. Although their plans for Randhurst were more modest, they still felt the need to update Randhurst’s appearance, and a number of renovation projects were initiated. The dome’s space-age cement fascia was stripped away to reveal bar joists and corrugated decking. The funky contoured columns were given a (boring) cylindrical refacing, and brass lighting sconces were attached. The mall’s lighting level was cranked up, and the main floor was resurfaced in a white and rose striped terrazzo, admittedly a very nice touch. Eventually, the fountain and sculptures were gone, the Gruen-trademark cement benches replaced with off-the-shelf wooden types. Additional stores were crammed everywhere, including the second level, and a food court was placed atop the center galleria mezzanine. It all served to give Randhurst a more generic appearance, in my opinion.

I’ve been to Randhurst twice in the last quarter century. In 1987, I moved away from the Chicago area to Atlanta to begin my career. One Saturday afternoon shortly before I moved, my Dad took me to Randhurst to buy me a briefcase as a going away present. It seemed like a special moment even at the time, and of course I look back on it with fondness. (My dad is still alive and well.) I remember marveling at how much Randhurst had changed since the remodeling. The second time was just about a year ago. I was on a business trip to Chicago that took me to the northwest suburbs, and I had recently read about the upcoming changes to Randhurst. Besides the obvious changes – Wieboldt’s and Wards were long gone, Carsons was now located in the old Wieboldt’s store, the revolving door of other anchors, etc., I was sad to see the mall looking somewhat emptyish, and the stores that were left didn’t seem to be doing that well. As much as I hate to see history torn down, I certainly see the logic behind the lifestyle center conversion, and I wish the new incarnation of Randhurst all the best. I’m grateful for photographs and memories, though.

There are some excellent Randhurst articles to be found on the following websites, which chronicle Randhurst’s more recent history in much more detail. Labelscar has a great article and photos, which are fun to contrast with those I’ve included here. The Mall Hall of Fame has another great article on Randhurst, part of a series on Victor Gruen’s historic malls (the site also showcases other mall pioneers as well). Stores Forever is a site by John Gallo, who seems to have been at all the right places at the right times, and fortunately for us, he brought his camera along. Check out his two recent posts on Randhurst, including great 1982 views of the anchor store facades, which were largely unchanged from their original appearance at the time.

These photos are all circa 1962, Randhurst’s maiden year. The first photo, showing the classic Randhurst sign is a publicity shot from the sign company. The exteriors and galleria shots (in the sixth photo, check out the whale sculpture and the ladies in Randhurst logo hats in the foreground) are by famed architectural photographer Balthazar Korab and appeared in the November 1962 issue of Architectural Forum, the section and plan views are from the same magazine, and the individual store façade shots below are from Chain Store Age. (Corned Beef Center, where ya been?) Last is a grand opening ad with a listing of the initial lineup of stores.

Kmart - Big Changes for the Bluelight

Having enjoyed a golden decade from the mid-sixties through the mid-seventies, from that point on things would become complicated for Kmart. Part of this was due to external factors such as competition and general economic ups and downs, but a series of management decisions made along the way certainly played a major factor as well.

While Kmart was an early pioneer in automated distribution, they were slow to adopt computer technology for inventory control and ordering, ostensibly to maintain a high level of independence for store managers, but it proved very costly in terms of efficiency. A much larger factor, from the public’s point of view, was the appearance of the stores. While looking at these photos tends to make me (and many of you, as I’ve learned) very nostalgic for those days, one would have to admit that by the time the 1980’s rolled around, the look had become extremely dated. Over time, the public perception of the company unfortunately (and in many respects undeservedly) shifted from a source of “value-priced” goods to one of cheap goods.

As the eighties rolled on, the company found itself fighting a two-front war, on one side against Wal-Mart, which by that time had grown well beyond the Mid-South region, becoming a true national competitor. Wal-Mart, with highly sophisticated information systems and very aggressive supplier policies became extremely formidable in price competition. On the other flank, Dayton-Hudson’s Target stores had expanded far outside of their original Midwestern footprint, in part through the acquisition of such regional chains as Richway, its sister nameplate Gold Circle and a large number of Gemco units from Lucky Stores. Pursuing a strategy that emphasized affordable style, Target signed up designer Michael Graves, among others, to develop chic housewares for those on a budget. Kmart was now in the unenviable position of having to compete with Target on style and Wal-Mart on price.

In 1987, Kmart took a final step in cutting ties to its origins by selling all but 11 of the remaining Kresge and Jupiter stores to Rapid-American Corporation’s McCrory Stores division. By the 1980’s Rapid-American was a key caretaker of America’s 5-and-10 store heritage, owning McCrory, H.L. Green, J.J. Newberry, T G & Y, and McLellan’s. Their only competitors in that fading segment were Woolworth’s and Ben Franklin. Ironically, S.S. Kresge had gotten his start in the business in 1897 as joint owner of a dime store in Memphis, Tennessee with J.G. McCrory. The pair would later open a Detroit store (where Kresge would establish his namesake company) and a handful of others before going their separate ways, starting variety store dynasties under their own names.

In a mid-eighties bid to shore up their fortunes, Kmart embarked on a spree of diversified retail acquisitions that would last into the next decade. The list was extensive. During this period, Kmart bought out, among others, Waldenbooks (and later on Borders Books), the predecessor of what would become Builders Square, The Sports Authority, Pay Less Northwest (a Wilsonville, Oregon-based operator of 164 drug stores in the western states), and OfficeMax, a big-box office supply firm that Kmart acquired a stake in when it sold them a handful of “Office Square” stores (a short lived office supply concept that traded on the Builders Square nameplate). Within a few years, Kmart would buy a controlling interest in OfficeMax. There was also a chain of membership stores called Pace Membership Warehouse. Eventually, Kmart would combine many of these into an entity called the Specialty Store Division. Over the long haul, these acquisitions proved to be little help to the company, and in the mid-90’s Kmart began to sell off or spin off these divisions in a succession nearly as rapid as when it bought them in the first place. A large number of the Pace stores were sold to arch-competitor Wal-Mart for conversion to Sam’s Clubs. In 1998, Kmart would sell off its flagging 112-store Canadian division to Toronto-based Hudson’s Bay Company, who would combine it with its 298-store Zellers division, the leading discount chain in Canada.

In 1990, Kmart took the first step towards changing its image, adopting a new logo for the first time. That year, the company replaced its familiar “Kmart” logo with a red block letter “K” with the word “mart” written in script in the upper leg of the K. In my opinion, the single letter looked a bit lonely up there on the expansive horizontal facades of most Kmart stores. The company must have taken pride in their new logo, as I learned when my wife and I stopped into a Kmart shorted after it was introduced. She had worked at this Kmart one Christmas season before we were married to supplement her teaching income, and we decided to pop in to say hi to the manager, her old boss. He asked our opinion of the new logo, and my wife commented on how it reminded her of the old “Big K” signs. Big K was a chain of mid-south discount stores that Wal-Mart bought out in the early eighties.

He didn’t appreciate the comparison. (Hey, at least we didn’t try to claim credit when years later they added the word “Big” to many of their signs starting in 1996!) Recently, Kmart has adopted a new logo, restoring “mart” to its rightful place.

A more positive effect came about when in 1997 Kmart persuaded domestic diva Martha Stewart to create a comprehensive line of household goods to be exclusively sold at Kmart. Called “Martha Stewart Everyday” this very broad product line included everything from dishes to cookware to linens, towels and bath décor, and has in many ways been a lifeline for Kmart. There has been rampant speculation as to whether Ms. Stewart will renew her agreement with Kmart when it expires in 2009.

Despite Martha’s best efforts, Kmart skidded inexorably toward bankruptcy as the nineties drew to a close. Incurring a staggering $2.46 billion dollar loss for 2001, Kmart filed for bankruptcy protection on January 22, 2002. Operating 2,114 stores at the time of the filing, massive closings would follow, and a great many people who grew up shopping at Kmart would suddenly find that there was no longer one in or near their communities. The first wave of closings shuttered 284 stores, and sadly more waves were to follow.

A year later, the future of Kmart would be revealed when it was announced that a group of investors, led by 38–year old billionaire Edward S. Lampert, had submitted a plan to usher Kmart out of bankruptcy. Many changes, a degree of stability and a runup in Kmart’s value would follow, and Kmart has lived to fight to this day, although the road remains challenging, to put it mildly. In November 2004, Kmart announced its intentions to buy Sears, Roebuck and Co., a most ironic twist of fate considering the companies’ arch rivalry for America’s retail crown in the 70’s and 80’s. The combined entity was named Sears Holdings Company, and eventually many Kmart executives would relocate from Kmart’s massive 70’s modern headquarters in Troy, Michigan (which is now finally being torn down -many thanks to the reader who sent this link discussing the complex's fate) to Sears (also massive and much newer) HQ in the Chicago suburb of Hoffman Estates. From a consumer’s standpoint, a significant change has been the availability of core Sears brands in Kmart stores, including Die Hard, Kenmore and Craftsman.

The photos above are circa 1976, and show the sign and an interior from the Ionia, Michigan store, a “Group 9” store which was previously operated under another name. The third photo shows the checkouts from a new store in Oxford, Ohio. The fourth is a snack bar shot, location unknown, and the last store pictured is another Group 9 unit from Dyersburg, Tennessee. Thanks to John Flack, who has a great page on the opening of the Marlton, NJ Two Guys store, for photos 2 through 5.

Kmart - That 70's Store

Ah, the seventies. An era of taste and refinement. Of subtlety and style. And no place was better to outfit that style than Kmart. I believe that these Kmart scenes from the early and mid seventies capture the essence of that era as well as any photo, retail or non-retail, that I’ve ever seen.

Up first is a great early evening photo, from 1973, of the standard seventies Kmart exterior, followed by three very busy, slightly more recent interior shots, showing a virtual sea of 70’s humanity. In the first interior photo, the snack bar can be seen at the left rear of the store. And no, that’s not Ashton Kutcher with his back to the camera, this was the real seventies. The third and fourth photos show checkout area scenes.

By the middle of the decade, one of the burning questions in retail revolved around Kmart and whether their sales would surpass those of Sears, Roebuck and Co. By late 1976, Kmart had pulled past number two JCPenney, with $100 million more in sales and 70 percent higher profits than that well respected company. Another factor that didn’t escape notice was the increasing contrast of Kmart’s success with the troubles of their direct competitors, including some big national and regional discounting names – Grants, Interstate Department Stores (Topps and White Front), Arlan’s, Mammoth Mart and National Bellas Hess, to name just a few who were either out of business by then or were in bankruptcy reorganization. Within a few years, all would be gone.

In 1974, having established Kmarts in most major markets, Kresge launched a second Kmart format which they internally called the “Group 9 stores” specifically for smaller communities who were thought to be unable to support a full-sized (average 73,000 to 96,000 square feet) Kmart. The Group 9 stores were typically in the 40,000 square feet range. Interestingly, several of the Group 9 stores were originally opened as competitors’ discount stores. Kresge was able to capitalize on the misfortunes of several chains such as those named above and convert the stores to the smaller Kmarts. In 1977, the company would change its name from S.S. Kresge Company to Kmart Corporation, an acknowledgment that over 90 percent of their sales were coming from the Kmart stores.

Here are a few video links of vintage Kmart commercials for your enjoyment. The first one comes to us courtesy of Jack, a fan of this site, who commented recently on his pilgrimage to a local Kmart, searching for remnants of the golden era. This mid-70's commercial, which has become my life’s dream to reenact, was filmed in a store that very closely resembles the one pictured above. It features about as ecstatic (and well choreographed) a reaction to a new store in town as one could possibly imagine. For the last week, I’ve been walking around the house yelling “Kmart!” at random. You’ll see why. The second one, a Christmas commercial from 1974, features the eminently singable “Kmart is your saving place” jingle in its pure original form, one that would be heard in countless alternate versions in the years that followed. The last one is from the 1980 Christmas season, part of a charming series of commercials that I remember extremely well from my youth. Sure drives home the passage of time.

You're Safe When You Save at Kmart

A stylishly dressed mother, with stylishly dressed daughter in tow, shops the Kmart intimates department. A family stuffs a mother lode of purchases, including a color TV, into their car, and a young girl gazes adoringly at Kmart’s return policy, (maybe thinking “gee, Mom really is safe when she shops at Kmart!”, the company’s slogan that was introduced in ‘68), these scenes are circa 1968/70.

By the close of the sixties, the success of Kmart was truly astounding by nearly all measures. A typical variety chain at the start of the decade, the S.S. Kresge Company had roared away from the pack, with no slowdown in sight. From a single Kmart in March, 1962, the chain had grown to 365 units, with 60 to 75 more planned for 1970. In 1960 Kresge’s annual sales were $ 483 million, and by 1970 they were $2.5 billion and growing by 25 percent a year, a trajectory that would be the envy of any company.

Kmart...Eat Here and Get Gas!

You know, there’s really nothing like a Double K Burger when you’re craving that great Kmart taste! Mmmmmmm!

Yes, my friends, there really was such a thing as a “Kmart Chef”. After five years of outstanding growth, Kresge began to explore ways to leverage the success of Kmart. Though virtually all Kmarts had in-store snack bars and/or concession stands, Kresge figured that a free-standing fast food restaurant, complete with the Kmart brand name and located next to the main store, would be an effective way to snare those customers who managed to escape the store with their lunch or dinner dollars still in pocket. It was also assumed that the highly visible locations of the Kmarts – typically on high-traffic streets or adjacent to highways - would draw an ample number of customers as well. The first Kmart Chef, pictured above, was opened in October, 1967 next to the Pontiac, Michigan Kmart. Plans were announced for 10 more to open in 1968.

The stores were somewhat of a hybrid between a McDonald’s-type fast food restaurant and a cafeteria. Customers walked up to a counter (ala McDonald’s) but were given a tray to push along a stainless-steel cafeteria line. The Kmart Chefs did have interior seating, something that McDonald’s was in the process of a frenetic transition to as they replaced their famous red and white-striped walk-up drive-ins with sit-down restaurants. The initial “limited, high-turnover menu”, as Kresge described it, consisted of “hamburgers, cheeseburgers, frankfurters, fish sandwiches (gotta be ready for Lent), French fried potatoes, fried apple turnovers, assorted carbonated and fruit drinks, coffee, hot chocolate and milk”. As the outdoor sign said, hamburgers were initially 18 cents. That same year, in a controversial but fiscally necessary move, McDonald’s finally raised the price of their burgers from their traditional 15 cents to 18 cents as well.

As it turned out, only a small number of Kmart Chefs were ever opened, with the 10th store, an Albuquerque, New Mexico unit, not even opening until 1971. At that time, there were Kmart Chefs in Pontiac, Clemens and Warren MI, Erie PA, Moline IL, Wichita KS, Kansas City MO, Houston and Lubbock, TX. It was truly a random strategy, to put it charitably. The Kmart Chefs were closed down in 1974.

More successful in the long run were the Kmart gas stations. Many Kmarts had auto centers, generally free-standing units, and the addition of a Kmart-branded gas station was first tried in April, 1967 in the parking lot of an Atlanta Kmart. Pictured above is the original gas station (Check out the 100 octane gas - that stuff would probably be eight bucks a gallon now!). Two more Kmart gas stations were opened in the Metro Atlanta area the following January, beginning a strategy that Kmart has employed on and off ever since.

Kmart's Mid-Sixties Ascent

In contrast to its discount image, in the mid-sixties at least, the opening of a new Kmart could arguably be considered a town status symbol. Adding an average 35 stores per year at the time, Kresge would step up its pace even more as that tumultuous decade rolled on, tallying nearly 60 new Kmarts a year by 1970. Development was particularly heavy in the southern and western states, where Kresge had virtually no presence prior to 1960. The company continued to open a small number of new Kresge stores (only 2 in 1965, for example), but by then the writing was clearly on the wall, and all significant resources were plowed into the Kmart program. Surprisingly, a number of the Jupiter stores (a format that was developed to “ride out” the leases of fading Kresge stores) did well, and Kresge found itself in the unexpected position of signing new leases for those locations. Kresge also lost its founder during this period. Sebastian Spering Kresge passed away at the ripe old age of 99 in October 1966, having lived to see Kmart's initial triumphs.

During 1965, Kresge bought out two of Kmart’s original lessees – Holly Stores, Inc., the operator of Kmart’s womens’ and girls’ clothing departments, and Dunham Stores Corporation, who ran the sporting goods departments. A few years later, Kresge would combine the sporting goods and automotive supplies groups into a wholly-owned subsidiary called Kmart Enterprises.

As several of the photos show, Kmart heavily promoted their own private label goods, and many of them became respectable sellers. I vividly remember the first branded Kmart item I owned, a set of 10 (or so) magic markers (the package referred to them as “Water Colors”) in the familiar teal and gold Kmart packaging. My brother and I treated them like prized possessions. That was until we kept leaving the caps off, and one by one they dried out…

The first photo, from 1964, shows the majestic Rocky Mountains looming behind a Denver Kmart (with lots of room to expand!), with a nice snow cover over all. Following are five interior views from 1966, showing a service desk, always front and center in Kmart stores, a toothpaste display (lab tested!), a display of Mattel “Cheerful Tearful” dolls, and one of telescopes (must’ve been a popular featured item in discount stores back then) and lastly a typical supermarket aisle. Below is a nifty 1964 Kmart ad heralding the second Fresno, California store. This ad is interesting in that it shows the geographic distribution of the earliest Kmarts, although the stores are listed in alphabetical order by city, not chronological order.

What's the Frequency, Kmart?

The transformation that the Kresge company underwent with the introduction of Kmart was dramatic, to put it very mildly. Among the most impressive aspects were the sheer speed and scale of the rollout. Once the final decision was made to push forward with Kmart, Kresge president Harry Cunningham gave a mandate to Kresge’s real estate department that at least 60 leases be secured for new Kmart sites to accommodate the planned rapid-fire growth. As mentioned, there were 18 Kmarts in operation at the end of 1962. 35 would be added in 1963, 35 more in 1964, and 34 more in 1965. By the end of the decade, there would be over 270 Kmarts in all regions of the United States, as well as Canada and Puerto Rico.

Aside from four small-footprint stores that were used in part for development purposes (Kresge called them “bantam” K-marts), the average square footage of the earliest Kmarts was 60,000, growing to 75,000 within a couple of years and to over 90,000 square feet by the end of the 60’s. In the following decade, they would consistently exceed 120,000 square feet.

The simple, rectangular, box-like design of the Kmart stores was a definite aid in the speed at which the stores opened, with average construction time at a brief six months per store. Another key factor was Kresge’s insistence on building free-standing stores in most cases, thereby avoiding frustrating (and costly) delays at the hands of shopping center developers. Kmarts were often located near other stores, but were rarely connected to them.

Kresge sought to open at least two (often more) stores in quick succession within a given market in order to maximize advertising dollars. The first major market, for obvious reasons, was the Detroit metro area, Kresge’s hometown, where seven Kmarts were operating within the first two years. Atlanta, Denver, Knoxville, Fresno and Charlotte were among the other early multiple-store markets.

The store carried a full line of merchandise, including clothes, kitchen items, home improvement and auto accessories , sporting goods, a camera department (remember the “Focal” brand?), electronics (or “Television and Hi-Fi” as such departments were then commonly called), jewelry, and in many cases, a full-line supermarket. A number of the departments were leased, among them sporting goods, cameras and jewelry.

Most notably the supermarkets were leased, from a number of different operators. The early Kmart supermarket lessees were moderate-sized grocery firms, including Borman Food Stores, Inc., the first operator of the some of the K-mart supermarkets in Michigan, Illinois and Indiana. Even small family-owned grocers got in on some of the action. When the Benton Harbor, Michigan Kmart opened in 1963, for example, the supermarket portion was operated by John Sassano, an independent grocer based in Hobart, Indiana. The largest operator of Kmart supermarkets would be Detroit-based Allied Supermarkets, who signed on with the company in June 1964. Allied up to that point had operated food stores in the Midwest, Texas and Oklahoma under the names Wrigley and Humpty Dumpty, among others. They would eventually operate grocery units in a great many Kmart stores all over the country well into the 1970’s. The supermarket areas averaged 20-24,000 square feet and were all thoroughly branded “Kmart”, regardless of the operator. There even was a line of private label items, including Kmart potato chips!

The stores were big, fairly colorful, and most importantly featured discount prices across the board. And then there were the “special buys” (later called “bluelight” specials) to drive high-volume sales on select items. Kmart’s selling prices were set at Kresge headquarters in Detroit, and interestingly, the individual Kmart store managers were given the authority to lower prices to beat local competition, but they were forbidden to raise them. “Charge It!” banners abounded.
Customers showed up en masse, and most of them instantly became regulars. A retailing legend was born.

The photos, dating from late 1962/early 1963, show some of the earliest Detroit area Kmarts, including an exterior view (the Kmart logo would be tweaked slightly on future stores), and views of various departments. The woman shopping in the supermarket area resembles Barbara Billingsley, TV’s Mrs. Cleaver. She’s shopping the detergent aisle, and if you look carefully you can see some boxes of Tide, that most photogenic of consumer products, to her lower right. There's a mezzanined furniture area visible behind the camera department, a feature of a number of early stores. I find the last photo very touching, because it seems to feature a real-life mother and daughter, not professional models. The mom looks like the kind who would have had fresh cookies baking in the oven when you showed up home from school.

S.S. Kresge's Pre-K Days

Before discount stores popped up all across America, there were the variety stores. For decades, Middle America shopped at these stores for their basic needs – housewares and kitchen items, linens, basic clothing, shoes, school supplies, toys and so on. Most of the larger variety chains had their origin in the decades immediately preceding or following the beginning of the 20th century. They were fittingly known as “5 and 10 cent stores” in the early days, for the simple reason that most products sold for one of those two price points. Even as late as the early sixties, when the chains had long since begun carrying higher priced items, they were still popularly referred to as “dime stores”. Until well into the 1940’s, they were almost exclusively found in downtown locations, with shopping center locations slowly becoming part of the mix from that point on. Many variety stores had snack bars or luncheonettes. The chains’ stores had a similar look, especially from the exterior, with the signage style for a number of them virtually the same (until the early 1950’s at least)– a narrow, red sign across the full width of the storefront, with gold or silver serif lettering. Even many of the store names followed a recognizable pattern – F.W. Woolworth, J.J. Newberry, W.T. Grant, S.H. Kress, G.C. Murphy and…. S.S. Kresge.

S.S. Kresge Company, based in Detroit and officially founded in 1911 by Sebastian Spering Kresge, was the number three variety chain in the US at the dawn of the sixties, behind F.W. Woolworth and W.T. Grant. At the end of 1960, Kresge had 759 variety stores, mostly located in the Midwest and Eastern states. The company’s first stores in California wouldn’t even open until 1961, and their presence in the growing Southern states at this point was minimal at best. By all appearances, Kresge was a staid, conservative, regional retailer, expanding at a relatively steady, deliberate pace.

Behind the scenes, however, an exciting development was taking place at Kresge. Faced with the same challenges that were affecting the variety store category as a whole – declining profitability, increased labor costs, stores that were becoming too old, too small and too urban, and impacted by the success of upstart discounters such as E.J. Korvette, Kresge embarked on a plan to scope out the discount industry for themselves.

In 1957, Harry B. Cunningham, the energetic 50-year old head of sales for Kresge embarked on a new mission, one that would take him all over the country over the next two years. Cunningham was placed in charge of a project to explore the discount industry up close, visiting stores, taking note of what worked and what didn’t with an eye toward Kresge’s own entrance into the discount store business. Cunningham liked the potential he saw, and the initial plans and strategies began to come together. In March 1961, with Cunningham now at the helm of the company, the decision was made to go full steam ahead with “Kmart”, Kresge’s discount store concept.

To coincide with this, the decision was made to accelerate closing of many of the older, outmoded Kresge stores. In a number of cases, Kresge was locked into long-term leases on these older, less than desirable locations, so a third store format was devised to make use of those stores. Those Kresge stores would be converted to “Jupiter” stores, a bare-bones discount operation specializing in a limited line of high-demand, basic goods at deep discount prices. Robert Drew-Bear, in his excellent book “Mass Merchandising” cites that the Jupiter format “made it possible to move items such as price-maintained men’s underwear with extreme speed, whereas the same line barely moved as a (Kresge) store item”.

On January 25, 1962, the first store under the Kmart name opened, one that was generally thought of as a “test” Kmart in California’s San Fernando Valley, a store of only 24,000 square feet. The first “official” Kmart, a 60,000 square foot store, opened in the Detroit suburb of Garden City, Michigan on March 1 of that year. By the end of 1962, 18 Kmarts would be in operation.

It was an impressive start for an initiative that would profoundly change the S.S. Kresge Company and indeed American retailing in general. Within a few short years, the Kmart stores would leave not only Kresge’s variety store competition, including Woolworths and Grants, in the proverbial dust, but a good number of other retailers as well.

The first artist’s rendering is of the Kresge store at Pontiac Mall (later Summit Place Mall) of Pontiac, Michigan and dates from 1960. The second one, in color, is from an unknown location, 1959. Below is the Kresge store located at Winrock Center, in Albuquerque New Mexico, from 1961 along with renderings of the new formats - Jupiter and Kmart, from the same year.

Note: Thanks to the anonymous commenter who was kind enough to provide us a link to some vintage 1964 Kresge store "mood music" - Fantastic!

http://www.oddiooverplay.com/ears/kresge.html