Target

Target is a chain of 1,897 discount department stores in the United States. Created as the low-margin discount division of The Dayton Company department store chain, the first Target store opened in Roseville, Minnesota in May 1962. Target stores have made up the entirety of the Target Corporation's business since the Mervyn's and Marshall Field's chains were sold in 2004. The chain briefly expanded outside the United States with the conversion of 133 former Zellers stores into Target Canada starting in 2013, but the Canadian stores were unsuccessful and all closed in 2015.

Store history
The first four Target stores opened in Minnesota in 1962. The chain expanded outside the state for the first time in 1966, with the opening of two stores in Colorado. In 1980, Dayton Hudson Corporation acquired the Ayr-Way discount department store chain from L. S. Ayres and Company, converting its 40 locations, mostly in Indiana, into Target stores.

With the opening of the chain's first three locations in Hawaii in 2009, Target had locations in 49 states and the District of Columbia. The last remaining state, Vermont, saw its first Target open in 2018.