Federal's

Last updated
Federal's
Company typePrivate
IndustryRetail
Founded1929;95 years ago (1929) in Detroit, Michigan
FounderDavison brothers
Defunct1980;44 years ago (1980)
FateLiquidation
Number of locations
54
Area served
Metro Detroit
ProductsClothing, household goods

Federal Department Store, or Federal's, was a department store chain based in Detroit.

History

Federal's was founded in 1929. [1] In 1961, Federal's merged with Kobacker's of Columbus, Ohio and in 1969, [2] it bought Shifrin-Willens Jewelers. [3] The chain filed for bankruptcy in 1972. [4] That same year, the Federal's stores in Lansing and Kalamazoo were closed. [5] Steven Watstein, also known as Steven West, purchased Federal's in 1978. [6] The chain was liquidated in 1980. [7] [8]

One of Federal's holdings at the time of the bankruptcy was the Hoffritz for Cutlery chain, which was sold off in 1975 in a leveraged buyout. [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jewel-Osco</span> American supermarket chain

Jewel-Osco is a regional supermarket chain in the Chicago metropolitan area, headquartered in Itasca, a western suburb. In 2007, the company had 188 stores across northern, central, and western Illinois; eastern Iowa; and portions of northwest Indiana. Jewel-Osco has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Boise-based Albertsons since 1999. The company originally started as a door-to-door coffee delivery service before it expanded into delivering non-perishable groceries and later into grocery stores, and supermarkets. Prior to its 1984 acquisition by American Stores, Jewel evolved into a large multi-state holding company that operated several supermarket chains and other non-food retail chain stores located from coast to coast and had operated under several different brand names.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Broadway Stores</span> American retailer

Broadway Stores, Inc., was an American retailer based in Southern California. Known through its history as Carter Hawley Hale Stores and Broadway Hale Stores over time, it acquired other retail store chains in regions outside its California home base and became in certain retail sectors a regional and national retailer in the 1970s and 1980s. The company was able to survive takeover attempts in 1984 and 1986, and also a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in 1991 by selling off most of its assets until August 1995 when its banks refused to advance enough additional credit in order for the company to be able to pay off suppliers. At that point, the company sold itself to Federated Department Stores for $1.6 billion with the acquisition being completed on October 12, 1995.

Waldenbooks was an American shopping mall-based bookstore chain operated by the Walden Book Company, Inc., and from 1995 was a subsidiary of Borders Group. The chain also ran a video game and software chain under the name Waldensoftware, as well as a children's educational toy chain under Walden Kids. In 2011, the chain was liquidated in bankruptcy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vons</span> American supermarket chain owned by Albertsons Companies, Inc

Vons is a supermarket chain owned by Albertsons, with most of its locations in Southern California and the Las Vegas Valley. It is headquartered in Fullerton, California, and operates stores under the Vons and Pavilions banners. It was owned by Safeway Inc. and headquartered in Arcadia, California, before that company was acquired by and folded into Albertsons along with all of their subsidiaries, including Vons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brentano's</span> American bookstore chain

Brentano's was an American bookstore chain with numerous locations in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">White Front</span> American chain of discount stores

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thrifty PayLess</span> Defunct American drugstore chain

Thrifty PayLess Holdings, Inc. was a pharmacy holding company that owned the Thrifty Drugs and PayLess Drug Stores chains in the western United States. The combined company was formed in April 1994 when Los Angeles–based TCH Corporation, the parent company of Thrifty Corporation and Thrifty Drug Stores, Inc., acquired the Kmart subsidiary PayLess Drug Stores Northwest, Inc. At the time of the merger, TCH Corporation was renamed Thrifty PayLess Holdings, Inc. and Thrifty operated 495 stores, PayLess operated 543 stores.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bullock's</span> American department store chain

Bullock's was a chain of full-line department stores from 1907 through 1995, headquartered in Los Angeles, growing to operate across California, Arizona and Nevada. Bullock's also operated as many as seven more upscale Bullocks Wilshire specialty department stores across Southern California. Many former Bullock's locations continue to operate today as Macy's.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FedMart</span> American discount department store chain

FedMart was a chain of discount department stores started by Sol Price, who later founded Price Club. Originally a discount department store open to government employees paying a $2 per family membership fee, FedMart earned four times more than its investors had projected in its first year. Over the next 20 years, FedMart grew to include 45 stores, mostly in California, and the Southwest in a chain that generated over $300 million in annual sales. The business expanded to several states in the Southwest United States. Many stores were previous White Front or Two Guys locations. Price later sold two-thirds of the chain to Hugo Mann, a German retail chain, in 1975 and was forced out of his leadership position the following year. FedMart went out of business in 1982.

Child World was an American toy retailer founded in 1962. It grew to 182 sites and revenues of $830 million before failing in 1992. It was known for the distinctive stylized castle store exterior adopted after its 1975 purchase of the Children's Palace store chain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fedco</span> American membership department store chain (1948 to 1999)

Federal Employees' Distributing Company, known as Fedco, was a membership department store chain that operated in Southern California from 1948 to 1999.

The William H. Block Company was a department store chain in Indianapolis and other cities in Indiana. It was founded in 1874 by Herman Wilhelm Bloch, an immigrant from Austria-Hungary who had Americanized his name to William H. Block. The main store was located at 9 East Washington Street in Indianapolis in 1896. The company also identified itself as The Wm. H. Block Co., and Block's.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peebles (store)</span>

Peebles was an American chain of department stores owned by Stage Stores, Inc. and headquartered in Houston, Texas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kohl's Food Stores</span> Grocery store chain

Kohl’s Food Stores was a Milwaukee-area grocery store chain and subsidiary of The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company. Kohl’s Food Stores distribution center was located in Waukesha, while its management offices were located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">H. P. Wasson and Company</span> American department store chain

H. P. Wasson and Company, aka Wasson's, was an Indianapolis, Indiana, based department store chain founded by Hiram P. Wasson. Its flagship store, the H. P. Wasson & Company Building, was built in 1937 and is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

Interstate Department Stores, Inc., was an American holding company for a chain of small department stores, founded in Delaware in 1928. After a very rapid expansion as the result of acquisition and expansion of two discount store chains acquired in 1959 and 1960 and also two toy store chains acquired in 1967 and 1969, the firm was renamed in 1970 as Interstate Stores, Inc., to better reflect its business. Increased competition and the changes in consumer buying habits eventually led to decreased sales in the late 1960s and early 1970s which forced the firm to file for bankruptcy in 1974. After shedding all of its non-performing units, the firm was able to exit bankruptcy with the entire toy division intact along with a small remnant of the department store division in 1978. The firm was renamed Toys "R" Us upon emergence from bankruptcy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Builders Emporium</span> Home improvement store chain based in Irvine, California

Builders Emporium was a chain of home improvement stores based in Irvine, California, United States. At the time of its closing in 1993, it had 82 stores in Southern California and an additional 15 in Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas; 4,300 employees in total.

Akron Stores or The Akron was a Southern California–based imported goods and home decorating department store retail chain established in 1947 and was known to carry unusual merchandise, mostly imports. The chain had over 24 stores throughout Southern California from San Diego to San Francisco before it was forced to close in 1985.

References

  1. Journal of the House of Representatives. Vol. 2. State of Michigan. 1980. p. 1814. OCLC   3825172 via Google Books.
  2. "Davidson Bros., Detroit, Buy Kobacker Stores". The Blade . Toledo. January 28, 1961. p. 15.
  3. "Federal's Buys Shifrin-Willens". The Wall Street Journal . April 29, 1969. p. 7. ProQuest   133407350.
  4. Rizzo, Michael F. (2007). Nine Nine Eight: The Glory Days of Buffalo Shopping. Lulu Inc. ISBN   978-1430313861. OCLC   128202051.
  5. "Store Closings Set By Federal's Chain" . The New York Times . December 27, 1972. p. 68. ProQuest   119497770.
  6. "Steven West Assumes Control at Federal's Inc". The Wall Street Journal. March 20, 1978. p. 7. ProQuest   134257262.
  7. Whitaker, Jan & Lisicky, Michael. "More questions and comments about department stores from readers". The History of Department Stores (blog). Archived from the original on 2012-08-17. Retrieved 2014-01-07.
  8. Gleaves, Rebekah (August 29, 2002). "Wild, Wild West: Once convicted of fraud and in debt to the IRS for a cool million, Steven West is some kind of businessman". New Times Broward-Palm Beach .
  9. Trying a Jump-Start at Hoffritz, The New York Times (December 17, 1994)