Happy New Year!

All right, so this one might be a little obvious- a photo showing a “Happy New Year” sign for a New Year’s Day post, but I like it a lot. This photo, a 1985 original snapshot, depicts the tri-faced tower sign for the Macomb Mall in Roseville, Michigan, a northeast suburb of Detroit, an area where cool shopping center signs were the order of the day, it seems. When the photo was taken, the sign (and the mall) was already 21 years old, but believe it or not it still stands today, just one year shy of Macomb Mall’s golden anniversary.

There have been a few changes over the years, naturally. Crowley, Milner and Company (background of the photo), a proud department store presence in the Detroit area since 1909, prospered in the shadow of its much larger department store competitor J.L. Hudson Company for decades. Things grew tough by the 1990’s however, and despite valiant efforts to reinvent itself and to introduce new formats, Crowley’s closed its doors in 1999, selling out to Columbus-based Schottenstein Stores, owners of Value City. The Macomb Mall store, along with two other locations, was reopened under the name of “Crowley’s Value City.”  These were closed in 2008.

In 1985, a MainStreet store (division of Federated Department Stores) was opened, later becoming a Kohl’s in 1988, amid the wild selloff of Federated assets that followed in the wake of the Campeau takeover that year.

The script-signed Sears store was magnificent. Built at the peak of the company’s power, it’s an enduring reminder of that great institution’s glory days.  

Regarding the tower sign, this was actually the second of this design to be installed in the area – in 1962, two years prior to Macomb Mall’s opening, its developer Schostak Brothers & Company opened Livonia Mall, northwest of Detroit, with the same two anchors – Sears and Crowley’s.  Livonia Mall was torn down in 2009 and a new shopping center, Livonia Marketplace, occupies the site.

A third area center, Troy’s Oakland Mall, was developed by a different company yet sported signs that were very similar to the Livonia and Macomb signs, with a just a few differences. Once again, Sears was the main anchor (opened in 1965, it preceded the rest of the mall by a couple of years), but this time it was Crowley’s competitor Hudson’s supplying the local department store flavor. Hudson’s was later converted to Marshall Field’s and is now (cue the rimshot) a Macy’s. The signage that exists there now is, shall we say, less than inspired.

At any rate, thanks for joining me as we begin a new year of Pleasant Family Shopping. I hope you’ll stick around as we continue to explore the great architecture, the good, bad and just plain crazy business decisions, the strange coincidences and the tender moments of America’s retail past.

Oh, and please…drive with care!      

March 1, 1962 - The First Kmart Opens

Today marks a key milestone in retailing history – the 50th anniversary of the opening of the first Kmart store, in Garden City, Michigan, pictured above shortly after its opening in a photo from “The S.S. Kresge Story”, a 1979 book by the company founder’s son, Stanley S. Kresge. This store still exists, albeit in extensively remodeled form.

By any measure, 1962 was the Year of the Discount Store. Two months later, on May 1, the first Target store opened in Roseville, Minnesota, and two months after that, on July 2, came the first Walmart in Rogers, Arkansas. Thus the stage was set for a key part of the retail drama that continues to play out today.

Others were launched that year as well, among them Big K, a Nashville-based chain that gained a decent foothold in the Mid-South before being absorbed by Wal-Mart in 1981. And of course there was Woolco, the discount division of F.W. Woolworth, which might have enjoyed Kmart-like success had Woolworth been willing to burn the ships the way the S.S. Kresge Company was.

The troubles of their last twenty years or so have made it increasingly hard to remember when the phrase “Kmart-like success” was a compliment of the highest order, but from the chain’s earliest years through the 1980’s, it most certainly was. For decades, while fellow ’62 travelers Target and Walmart remained barely known outside of their home turf, Kmart smashed sales records nationwide, and communities far and wide clamored for a new Kmart store in their neck of the woods. They turned the retail world upside down, ultimately toppling the thought-to-be unassailable Sears, Roebuck and Co. from its number-one retailer perch in 1986. Now, sadly, the two retailers commiserate under the same ownership, like two old vaudeville performers searching for an audience in the television age.

Yet what a fascinating business story it was (one I attempted to cover in a series of posts here a few years ago), right from its inception in the late 1950’s, when the brilliant Kresge manager Harry Cunningham set out to explore new business directions for the company. Kresge was early to key in on the coming decline of the “old five and ten”, and upon Cunningham’s visits to some of the early discounters (the New England area “mill stores” in particular), a new direction was set. To their credit, Kresge (meaning Cunningham and his team, with the blessing of 90-plus year old S.S. Kresge himself) pursued the Kmart program relentlessly, despite criticism, as if the company’s future depended on it - which it did.

In a multitude of ways, from large concepts to small details, Kmart served as the model for Walmart, and Sam Walton was always quick to credit Cunningham’s genius in the formation of his own company. In later years it became a mutual admiration society, with the then-retired Cunningham heaping praise on Walmart’s accomplishments while comparing his old company’s latter day performance to them in an unflattering light. Ironically, both men passed away in 1992. Twenty years later, of course, Kmart struggles for its very existence, while its “pupil”, so to speak, is the largest retailer (and second largest company) in the world.

But oh, what memories it holds for so many of us – the “Bluelight mobile unit”, a little cart with a pole-mounted flashing blue light, which seemed to make an appearance nearly every time we shopped there. (“C’mon Dad, they’re selling vacuum cleaners for 20% off!”) The Icees, the hideously painted cafeterias, the little gold, red and aqua shields on Kmart store-branded products. The yellow “Key” department price stickers and the “Remember – TYFSAK” stickers on the cash registers. And for me, my Grandmother’s “Focal” brand camera case, from which she would whip out the Kodak 126 Instamatic and Sylvania flashcubes (before my Dad bought her a Polaroid OneStep SX-70 sometime in the mid-70’s) at the slightest prompting.

So if you would, allow me to suggest this – if you live near a Kmart, why not run over there this evening and buy something, and while you’re at it, wish the checker a “Happy 50th Anniversary”? They probably won’t have a clue what you’re talking about (it’s gone unobserved on the Kmart website) (Note 3/20/12: I've since learned that Kmart did feature a post with the photo above on their Facebook page that day. History survives!), but you’ll feel good about it. If I still had one near me, I would!

A New Day For Wards

Shown above are some Montgomery Ward stores from the late 1950’s. They are among the first stores the company opened after a 17-year moratorium on new construction. Radically different from the quaint, outdated stores that Wards shoppers (a steadily decreasing cohort through the 50’s) were familiar with, they represent a herculean effort to reintroduce and redefine Montgomery Ward in the eyes of the buying public, and to compete in a retail world that had changed in so many ways.

Sewell Avery, whose leadership had saved the company in the 1930’s, was poorly suited to lead the company during America’s phenomenal economic expansion in the postwar years. Convinced that another depression loomed around the corner, Avery “put Wards in a ‘storm cellar’”, as Ward’s 100th anniversary publication put it. No funds would be allocated to new stores or modernization, and even inventory was skimped on. The anniversary book cites $270 million that the company was forced to refund to catalog customers in 1946 due to out-of-stocks, a horrendous sum in that day (or this one, for that matter). The massive refund payout kept Wards from attaining what would have been its first billion-dollar sales year.

Avery’s pessimistic outlook, and his conviction that government policies were in the works to further penalize Wards led him to focus his efforts on building a large cash reserve for the company. To be sure, that goal was achieved ($327 million in cash by 1955, of which all but $23 million was invested in U.S. Government securities – ironic, don't you think?), but it came at the expense of the company’s retail business – its presumable reason for existence.

By 1955, as Fortune magazine later put it, “Montgomery Ward was a very sick cat”, with a “mountainous pile of cash and the company’s reputation for quality and service, but that was about all…”. Probably the most powerful indicator of Ward’s standing in the public eye came when contrasted with Sears. From the mid-1920’s through the early 40’s, as their companies gradually approached the billion dollar mark, Wards and Sears’ annual sales closely tracked each other, with Sears leading throughout the period by a fairly small gap. By the end of the 40’s, the “gap” had turned into a delta, with Sears at $2 billion and Wards at only one. Ten years later the “delta” had become the Grand Canyon, with Sears tallying over $4 billion and Wards still stuck at just over a billion dollars. Sears had taken the completely opposite approach to Wards when it came to expansion, snapping up choice suburban shopping center locations on which they would build huge, sprawling stores. While Wards languished in the past, Sears became the store of choice for postwar America, supplying all manner of goods –clothes, appliances, furniture, lawn mowers, you name it – to help usher in a new era of affordable luxury and leisure-time pursuits for the middle class. In the process, Sears came to symbolize America itself in the eyes of many.

By the mid 1950’s, pressure was building on Montgomery Ward to end Sewell Avery’s autocratic reign and archaic policies. In August 1954, Louis E. Wolfson, described in the anniversary book as a “youthful industrialist and promoter” came on the scene, announcing his intention to bid for control of Montgomery Ward. Wolfson, a forerunner to the corporate “takeover specialists” of the 1980’s, had reportedly gained control over corporate assets worth over $200 million by that time, according to author James Grant in his book “Money of the Mind”. Wolfson proclaimed that he saw a huge opportunity to restore Wards to greatness, putting the large cash reserve to use in expansion. Wolfson, while maintaining a modicum of personal respect for Avery, pointed out (as quoted in the Grant book) that “Ward’s management had blindly and obstinately hitched the company’s future to a depression”. The 81-year old Avery, for his part, batted back fiercely. In the company’s annual report to stockholders for 1954, Avery used the usually placid, non-controversial format of the annual report to outline his defense against Wolfson, a seven-point description of various investigations, alleged conflicts of interest and accusations of self-dealing on Wolfson’s part. Avery closed with: “In contrast, the character of your management has been reflected in the accomplishments of the last 24 years, during which the assets have been built up to $721,000,000 including cash of $327,000,000”.

In April 1955, one of the most famous proxy fights in the history of American business took place at Montgomery Ward’s annual meeting in Chicago. A confused and feeble appearing Sewell Avery took the microphone and attempted to lay out his case, with pitiful results. The whole proceeding was documented by Life Magazine's photographer, as can be seen here. Because of the structure of Ward’s board, only three new directors could be appointed per year, so while Wolfson failed to gain control of the company, his efforts were sufficient to oust Avery from the chairmanship. Wolfson and two associates were seated on the board. Sewell Avery resigned as chairman but would remain on the board for another four years, passing away in 1960. Wards vice president John Barr, a longtime company veteran who had been loyal to Avery but saw the need to expand and modernize, took over as chairman. Wolfson and his two associates, confident that Barr and the new team would revive the company and enhance his investment, resigned from the board early in 1956. Wolfson would later pursue a number of diverse ventures, including helping to finance Mel Brooks’ first film, “The Producers”.

Barr set two main goals – to rebuild Ward’s decimated management structure, and to expand and revamp the store base. The store program started slowly, with only $8 million spent on store remodels in 1956. More importantly, however, plans were being drawn for Wards stores with a completely new image – new styles, merchandising, color schemes, logos, and just about everything else. In late 1957, a new store opened in Portsmouth, Ohio. Shopping center stores, the company’s new main focus, were first opened in Denver, Colorado and Gary, Indiana in 1958, along with a new downtown store in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. By 1959, $150 million had been spent on new store development, with plans announced for another $500 million to be spent over the next five years.

Montgomery Ward, retail’s “Rip van Winkle”, had finally awoken.

Pictured above, from top to bottom: The opening (to-day) festivities of the new Wards store in Gary, Indiana, complete with a rostrum full of dignitaries, the Eau Claire, Wisconsin store (with dignitaries but no rostrum), The new store at Kansas City’s Blue Ridge Shopping Center, with cool looking trellises above the entrances, a wide shot of the Gary store, and a busy scene at the new Wheaton (MD) Plaza location from 1959. For those who prefer black-and-white, below are the 1957 Portsmouth, Ohio, store, another shot of the Kansas City Blue Ridge store, and finally the new Wonderland Shopping Center store, opened in Livonia, Michigan in 1959.

A Tale of Kroger, Old and New

The photographs above depict the Kroger store at the Southland Shopping Center, located on the corner of Westnedge and Milham Avenues in Portage, Michigan. Portage is just south of Kalamazoo, and about 150 miles from Chicago. They were taken by the late John Todd, a Kalamazoo-based commercial photographer who extensively documented the area’s growth over a four decade career.

They date from July 1960, and show the store’s grand opening festivities. As mentioned numerous times on this site, “grand” openings at the time were exactly that. They were true community events, featuring all manner of hullaballoo – dance contests, pony rides, drawings, and of course, giveaways. In this case, as the photos show, the giveaways included dolls for the little girls and an unspecified “Free Baked Good!” for the adults.

The Kroger store appears typical of the era, probably 12,000 – 16,000 square feet in size, with the oft-seen white internally lit letters against a light blue corrugated metal background. The interior shots show the produce area and the prepared foods counter, where one of the chefs (the guy in the party hat) was obviously in the spirit of things.

The Southland Shopping Center featured two Kroger-owned entities, the supermarket and a Top Value Stamps redemption center, located on either side of a Federal Department Store. The Federal stores, 58 of which were in operation in 1961, were owned by Detroit-based Davidson Brothers, Incorporated. They were closed in the 1970’s.

For the next 12 years, this store was Kroger’s standard-bearer in the Portage area. Around 1965 Meijer, a local favorite, opened a “Village Market” store down the street, and would expand it over the years. A modern-day Meijer sits on the same site. In 1972, Jewel-Osco opened a large store in the area (again locating on Westnedge, on what could have easily have been termed “Supermarket Row”), one of a number of stores in Western Michigan cities, which included Benton Harbor and St. Joseph, which that chain would operate.

In February 1973, Kroger rose to the occasion with the opening of a brand-new Superstore (shown in the photos below, which were also taken by Mr. Todd) to replace its original Southland Shopping Center unit. In many cases, Kroger would knock out a wall of an existing store in order to expand the shell for a new superstore. Since the company’s minimum acceptable standard for the superstores was 25,000 square feet (with a maximum size of 42,000 square feet), it was necessary to build a new unit on the end of the shopping center, in this case right next to Kroger’s Top Value redemption center. That year (1973), Kroger created 68 superstores through renovation/expansion of existing stores, while opening 80 new ones. I’m not altogether sure which category this one fits in!

From Kroger’s standpoint, the superstores were revolutionary, facilitating tremendous growth and expansion for Kroger in the newer, rapidly growing Southern markets while shoring up their position in their traditional heartland areas such as Portage.

The 1973 photos appear to be pre-opening shots. Of note are the “Xtra Low Discount Prices” ceiling hangers that can be seen in a couple of them. These were part of a Kroger marketing strategy that appears to have been selectively employed at the time, based on local market conditions. A&P, who also had a store in Portage, was in the midst of its “WEO” campaign, which effectively drained the profits from much of the supermarket industry (and ultimately did very little to help A&P). Also, by this time, grand openings were usually (but thankfully not always) more subdued affairs, heavily focused on price specials and not much else. Nothing against discounts, but I personally still like the idea of a “Free Baked Good!”

The 1960 Kroger location now houses a Barnes and Noble, the 1973 location a Petco and M.C. Sporting Goods. The Federal Department Store is now a JCPenney Home Store.

My sincere thanks to the Portage District Library, and to their resident local historian Steve Rossio, for the use of these photos (and for the accompanying historical background notes) from their John Todd collection.

Jewel's Silver Anniversary Style

The artist’s rendering above dates from 1956, and depicts Jewel’s “25th Anniversary Store”, as planned for opening in Chicago the following year. This store featured the new tower design that replaced the masonry pylon as the company’s standard over the next several years. The store’s main sign was made up of individual “stand-up” letters, but rectangular signs were still used as well during this period. Here’s a 1970 color photo showing a late 50’s Jewel with the sign tower (barely) visible.

Twenty-five years on, Jewel could now claim the number one spot in Chicago grocery market share. Apparently, plenty of customers found Jewel “a better place to trade”, as their advertising tagline of the time put it. Jewel began to take its first expansion steps outside the Chicagoland area. In March, 1957, Jewel bought out the Eisner Grocery Company. Eisner was based in Champaign, home of the University of Illinois, and had 42 grocery stores located in Central Illinois and Western Central Indiana. Eisner grew rapidly within a short time under Jewel’s ownership, with the addition of five new stores in the first year. In 1958, Jewel would open up another new market area, with four new stores in greater Peoria. Although these stores went under the Jewel name, they were operated by Eisner. Due in part to the Eisner market area’s distance from Chicago, but mostly to the decentralized management style that was favored by Jewel, Eisner was operated as a stand-alone operation, with its own offices, warehousing and bakery operations in Champaign.

Around the same time, Jewel would venture into two adjoining states for the first time. First they entered Wisconsin, with the 1958 purchase of two stores from Connolly’s Finer Foods in just over the border Kenosha. The first Jewel in nearby Rockford, Illinois (just under the border) was also opened that year. In the following March, Jewel would open its first Michigan store in Benton Harbor, on the other side of Lake Michigan shoreline from Chicago. All of these stores were serviced from the Melrose Park home base.

Jewel's frontiers would expand much further in the early years of the 1960’s.

Just for fun, below is a 1956 view of the new Jewel Food Store in Chicago’s Scottsdale Shopping Center, located at West 79th Street and South Cicero Avenue and opened in November of the previous year. This shopping center (which still exists, though it goes without saying the original tenants have long since departed) was also notable for a unique Goldblatts store with a curved facade.

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

Remember...TYFSAK!

From the tail end of the 60’s well into the early 80’s, my family and I often shopped at Kmart. (In my case, the one at Algonquin and Golf Roads in Arlington Heights, Illinois. A Lowe’s now sits on that site.) I was always intrigued by a small, fluorescent light red sticker with black type that read “Remember…TYFSAK!” that seemed to be on every cash register in the store, right next to the numeric display. Tyfsak?! What in the world is that? For me, it became the Great Mystery of Kmart. Somehow, eventually, the nickel dropped and I figured out that it stood for “Thank you for shopping at Kmart”, the phrase all conscientious Kmart checkers exclaimed at the end of every successful transaction. Guess I could have asked, but that would have taken all the fun out of it.

The photo above is of a Detroit-area Kmart, Christmas season 1965, when Kmart was beginning to knock the traditional retail world back on its heels.