Your vintage local department store lists

[Mikey]

Expanding on the Walmart thread .. especially after hearing how long Walmart has actually been around got me thinking ....

Name your local chain department stores in your area when you grew up.
They could be long defunct or still operating today.

Use the age of 20 as a cut off point regardless of your age today...

My list (as far as I can remember)

Jamesway
Grants
Falks
K-mart
Two Guys
J.J. Newberry
Woolworths
Shelby's
Ames
Big N
Hess's
Rockaway Sales

That's about all I can think of not counting big malls which were pretty far away and had stores like Sears, Macy's etc.

[HardyGirl]

Macy's
Gimbels
Alexanders
Woolworth
JJ Newberry
Dime & Dollar
K-Mart
Clothestime
Stationery's
May's

[livnxxxl]

K-Mart
Stix Baer and Fuller
Dolgin's
Woolworth's
JC Penney's
Famous Bar
Target
Venture
Service Merchandise
Sears

Just off the top...

[kryptosmaster]

Two Guys
Twin Fair
Ames
K-Mart
Kresge
Woolworths
Grants
JC Penneys
Sears
Montgomery Wards
Century
Ben Franklin
Big N
Nichols
Kings
Sattlers
Fedmart
Brand Names
A M & A's

[Megospidey]

Woolworth's
Woolco (sp)
People's Drugstore
K-Mart

[toys2cool]

Sears
Service merchandise
BEST(Anyone have one of those?)
Zayre's
woolworths
JC Penny
K-mart
Ames(use to be Zayre's)
McCrory? something like that, it had a 50's diner inside

[ODBJBG]

Zayre's
Ames
Woolworths
Service Merchandise
Children's Palace

[ScottA]

K-mart
TG&Y
Ames
Zayre's
Rose's
Gaylords
Bellas Hess
Montgomery Wards
Sears
Woolworth's
Grants
Service Merchandise
Lionel Playworld

[vulcan2074]

JcPenneys
Kmart
Montgomery Wards
Sears
Woolworths


Sammy

[trekman101]

Many of the ones already mentioned plus.....
E.J. Korvetts
Alexanders
S. Klein

[jwyblejr]

Besides most of the ones listed,Bradlees and Barkers.

[Hector]

Gemco was my favorite store for Megos back in the day....they had a great toy department...

Gemco - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gemco Department Stores


I also loved Woolworth's, Montgomery Ward's, and Emporium Capwells.

[thunderbolt]

KMart
Venture
Hornsby's
TG&Y
Zayre's
Bergner's
Sears
JCPenney
Wards
Kresge
Woolworth's
Top Save

[saildog]

In my hometown:
TG&Y (still a plaque on the building because it was one of the first ones)
Wal-Mart (Sam Walton was born in my hometown so we had one of the first ones when he expanded out of Arkansas)

Within driving distance:
K-Mart
Target
Venture
Woolworth
Ben Franklin
Sears
Wards
JC Penny
Service Merchandise

[johnnystorm]

Gable's Dept. Store in downtown Altoona, Pa. They had all those big windows where they did the toy displays just like in A Christmas Story. I remember visiting Santa at Christmas, the toy dept & santa's area was one entire floor. And he gave you an actual present, not a mini-candy cane and a crappy 4 pg. mall-ad disguised as a coloring book. I remember getting colorforms sets a couple times.

And we had, GC Murphy's & Woolworths of course. Had a friend who's (usually wasted) older brother always called it Werewolf's. I still refer to it like that and it still makes me laugh!

You know what I miss most about those stores? The toy depts were in the basement, and walking down the steps was like walking into another world as a kid. I miss stores with 2-3 floors.