Mervyn's

Mervyn's was a chain of department stores in the United States, founded in 1949 in San Lorenzo, California. The chain had 45 locations in California and Nevada when it was acquired by the Dayton Hudson Corporation, also the owners of Target, in 1978. Primarily located in major enclosed shopping malls, Mervyn's was a mid-scale retailer similar to Kohl's. As part of Dayton Hudson, Mervyn's grew to a peak of exactly 300 stores in 16 states, mostly in the American West. The company sold its non-Target operations in 2004, selling Mervyn's to a group of private equity investment firms. In 2008, the company filed for bankuptcy, and by January 2009 all stores had been liquidated.

Store history
The first Mervyn's store opened in 1949 on Hesperian Boulevard in San Lorenzo, California. A second location opened at the Fremont Hub Shopping Center in Fremont in 1962. The same year, Mervyn's acquired Albert's department store in downtown Napa. While owner Mervin Morris had originally announced that Albert's would keep its name out of respect for the store's established history in Napa, the store was converted into a Mervyn's the following year.

Beginning in the 1960s, the chain steadily spread across the San Francisco Bay Area and throughout Northern California. The first store outside its home state, and 29th store in the chain overall, opened in Sparks, Nevada in 1976. When Mervyn's was acquired by Dayton Hudson Corporation in May 1978, there were 45 locations, including a second store in Nevada. Later that year, the chain's footprint expanded further with the opening of its first stores in Arizona and New Mexico.

An aggressive expansion plan covering the Western United States continued under Dayton Hudson ownership. The first Mervyn's stores opened in Oregon in 1979, Utah in 1980, and Texas and Washington in 1981. While the chain continued to primarily focus on the West, clusters of stores were also created in other parts of the country, namely Georgia, Florida, and Michigan. The last new market entered by Mervyn's was the Twin Cities in Minnesota, home to the company's headquarters, where six stores opened in 1995.

The chain began to decline from a peak of exactly 300 stores in 16 states at the end of 1996. All 25 locations in Georgia and Florida were closed in 1997. With sales falling behind, Dayton Hudson refocused its resources on its most successful chain, Target, and was renamed Target Corporation in 1999. The new corporate strategy left little room for its non-Target operations, Mervyn's and Marshall Field's, which were sold in 2004. Mervyn's was taken private and purchased by a group of private equity investors that included and. The sale also stripped Mervyn's of its Minnesota locations, which were instead included in the sale of Marshall Field's to The May Department Stores Company.

In early 2006, the chain closed dozens of stores, mostly outside of its core southwestern market area. The closures took Mervyn's out of Louisiana, Michigan, and Oklahoma entirely, as well as eastern Texas. Further closures in 2007 shut down all stores in Washington and Oregon. The company filed for bankruptcy in July 2008, and closed dozens more stores in the fall. Before these closures could be completed, the chain announced that it would shut down completely by the end of the year. The remaining 149 stores, mostly in California, were liquidated, with the last stores closing in early January 2009.