Nordstrom, Inc. is an American luxury department store chain headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and founded by John W. Nordstrom and Carl F. Wallin in 1901. The original Wallin & Nordstrom store operated exclusively as a shoe store, and a second Nordstrom's shoe store opened in 1923. The growing Nordstrom Best chain began selling clothing in 1963, and became the Nordstrom full-line retailer that presently exists by 1971. The company founded its off-price Nordstrom Rack division in 1973, and grew both full-line and off-price divisions throughout the United States in the following years. The full-line division competes with department stores including Bloomingdale's, Macy's, Neiman Marcus, and Saks Fifth Avenue, while the off-price division competes with retailers including the TJX Companies and Ross Stores. Previous expansions beyond the contiguous United States include Puerto Rico (2015–2020) and Canada (2014–2023).
Montgomery Ward is the name of two successive U.S. retail corporations. The original Montgomery Ward & Co. was a world-pioneering mail-order business and later a leading department store chain that operated between 1872 and 2001. The current Montgomery Ward Inc. is a national online shopping and mail-order catalog retailer that started several years after the original Montgomery Ward shut down.
Uwajimaya, Inc., doing business as Uwajimaya Asian Grocery & Gift Markets, is a family-owned supermarket chain with its corporate headquarters in the International District, Seattle, Washington, and with locations in Greater Seattle and Oregon. Uwajimaya sells mainly Asian food—with an emphasis on Japanese—though it also stocks Western staples. The flagship store is in Seattle's Chinatown/International District with three other stores in Beaverton, Oregon, Bellevue, Washington and Renton, Washington. From 1968 to 1991 there was another store in the Southcenter Mall in Tukwila, Washington.
Pottery Barn is an American upscale home furnishing store chain and e-commerce company, with retail stores in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Australia. Pottery Barn is a wholly owned subsidiary of Williams-Sonoma, Inc.
Butler Brothers was a retailer and wholesale supplier based in Chicago. It was founded in 1877 as a mail-order company by Charles Hamblet Butler, George H. Butler and Edward Burgess Butler.
Frederick & Nelson was a department store chain in the northwestern United States, based in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1891 as a furniture store, it later expanded to sell other types of merchandise. The company was acquired by Marshall Field & Company in 1929. By 1980, the Frederick & Nelson chain had expanded to 10 stores in two states. The company went out of business in 1992. Its former Seattle flagship store building is now occupied by the flagship Nordstrom store.
Fred Meyer is an American chain of hypermarket superstores founded in 1922 in Portland, Oregon, United States, by Fred G. Meyer. The stores are found in the northwest U.S., within the states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska. The company was acquired by Kroger in 1998, though the stores are still branded Fred Meyer. The chain was one of the first in the United States to promote one-stop shopping, eventually combining a complete grocery supermarket with a drugstore, bank, clothing, jewelry, home decor, home improvement, garden, electronics, restaurant, shoes, sporting goods, and toys. The Fred Meyer division is headquartered in Portland.
Best Products Company, Inc., or simply Best, was a chain of American catalog showroom retail stores founded by Sydney and Frances Lewis in 1957 and formerly headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. The company was in existence for four decades before closing all of their stores by February 1997 and completely liquidating by December 1998. At the time of their second bankruptcy filing in September 1996, the company operated 169 Best stores and 11 Best Jewelry stores in 23 states, as well as a nationwide mail-order service. When in operation, Best Products was traded on the NASDAQ exchange as "BESTQ".
Lipman's was an American department store chain based in Portland, Oregon. Founded in 1850 in Sacramento, California, the company was originally known as the Lipman–Wolfe & Company, named after the two founding partners: Adolphe Wolfe and his uncle, Soloman Lipman. It eventually grew to six stores in Oregon before they were rebranded to Frederick & Nelson in 1979. The 1912 building in downtown Portland that was the company's flagship store is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as the Lipman–Wolfe and Company Building.
Service Merchandise was a retail chain of catalog showrooms carrying jewelry, toys, sporting goods and electronics. The company, which first began in 1934 as a five-and-dime store, was in existence for 68 years before ceasing operations in 2002.
White Front was a chain of discount department stores in California and the western United States from 1959 through the mid-1970s. The stores were noted for the architecture of their store fronts which was an enormous, sweeping archway with the store name spelled in individual letters fanned across the top.
Brookstone is a chain of retail stores in the United States and China. It was founded as a mail-order business in 1965, when it started selling items, such as dental clamps and other specialty tools. Its first physical location opened in 1973 in Peterborough, New Hampshire. The company's headquarters are currently located in Merrimack, New Hampshire.
The Crescent was a small chain of department stores founded and based in Spokane, Washington. Once a subsidiary of Marshall Field & Company, the chain was sold to BATUS Retail Group in 1982. BATUS renamed the stores Frederick & Nelson, the company's Seattle, Washington division, in 1988. Frederick and Nelson eventually filed for bankruptcy and liquidated in 1992. At its peak, The Crescent operated seven department stores in Washington and Oregon, including three in Spokane.
ABC Stores is a chain of convenience stores based in Honolulu. The chain operates 73 stores, 58 of which are located in the state of Hawaii, with the remaining locations in the Mariana Islands (1), Las Vegas (6), and Guam (8). The company now generates more than $230 million in annual sales and employs over 1500 staff, and is described as the 37th largest company in Hawaii.
G.I. Joe's was a privately owned retail chain for sporting goods, ready-to-wear clothing, and auto parts; that operated stores in the Pacific Northwest region of the northwestern United States.
GameCrazy was a video game retailer based in Wilsonville, Oregon. It was a subsidiary of Movie Gallery. The stores were often, but not always, located adjacent to Hollywood Video rental stores.
Valu-Mart was a chain of discount stores founded in Seattle in 1958. Its parent company was Weisfield's Jewelers. For many years Weisfield's was a store that carried jewelry, as well as televisions, radios, stereos, and other consumer electronics products. Once Valu-Mart was put into place, Weisfield's strictly became a jewelry store. The chain also had stores in Oregon, where they originally were named Villa-Mart. Separate grocery sections in the stores featured curbside grocery pickup by placing the grocery bags into numbered bins that rolled onto a conveyor allowing the customer to drive up to the front of the store to pick them up by giving the attendant a plastic card with the numbered bin they used. The groceries were then loaded into the car usually by store employees.
Norm Thompson Outfitters is a privately owned catalog and internet retailer based in Middleton, Massachusetts that was previously based in Hillsboro, Oregon, United States until September 2016. The Norm Thompson offices were closed and consolidated due to Bluestem's acquisition of their parent company, Orchard Brands, in July 2015. Founded in 1949 by Norman A. (Norm) Thompson as a mail order business, it grew to annual sales of $200 million before it was sold to Golden Gate Capital Partners in 2006. The company sells clothing, gadgets, furniture, kitchen items, and gift items from its namesake catalog as well as from its Solutions and Sahalie brands. John Difrancesco serves as president and chief executive of the 500 employee company.
Mor Furniture is an American furniture retailer, based in San Diego, California. Mor Furniture for Less is currently one of the largest furniture retailers in the United States as of 2010. The company owns and operates 29 stores and 10 warehouses in 7 states, including California, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico.
Sherman, Clay & Co. was an American musical instruments retailer—mainly pianos—and a publisher and seller of sheet music, founded in San Francisco. Founded in 1853 as A. A. Rosenberg, it was sold to Leander Sherman and Clement Clay in 1870 and was incorporated as Sherman, Clay & Company in 1892. During the 20th century, it gradually expanded its retail operation into a nationwide chain of stores, and by the 1980s it had around 60 stores. It was based in San Francisco until at least the 1970s. In 2013, the company closed or sold its last retail stores.
