Get Nostalgic With This Quiz on Defunct Retail Stores

The Waldenbooks founders believed reading could help people better deal with the difficult times of the 1930s. As the company grew into one of the largest booksellers in the nation with over 1,000 stores, it adopted effective growth strategies such as focusing on mainstream novels and expanding into videos and CDs. In 1984, Waldenbooks was sold to the parent company of Kmart, and in 2011 the chain closed all stores.

Pathmark was founded in 1968 after breaking away from ShopRite. Targeting customers in urban environments, Pathmark made a number of strategic decisions that paid off, running celebrity ad campaigns and keeping stores open 24 hours. (James Karen, who appeared in “Poltergeist” and other films, was the company’s most famous spokesperson, and became known as “Mr. Pathmark.”) Pathmark also popularized the “big box” trend in the grocery sector: In the 1980s, the chain opened a 42,000-square-foot location that was Manhattan’s largest supermarket.

Founder John Fry, along with his two brothers, decided to apply the big-box grocery concept to electronics, opening the first Fry’s in 1985. As the brand succeeded and expanded throughout California, Fry commissioned Hollywood set designer Eric Christensen to help build stores designed to resemble a Maya temple, spaceship, or the Wild West. Fry’s closed all its locations in 2021.

The Limited first opened in 1963 near Columbus, Ohio, selling only women’s clothes. The business enjoyed a period of initial success and later grew exponentially during the “mall era” of the ’80s and ’90s. Renamed L Brands in 2013, the company once owned many of the world’s top clothing brands, including Express, Abercrombie & Fitch, and New York & Company.

Modell’s started in 1889, selling hats and gloves to immigrants arriving in Manhattan. At its peak, the brand had over 140 stores along the East Coast. After being passed down through four generations of the Modell family, the chain declared bankruptcy and shut its doors in 2020, citing several factors including COVID-19, pressure from e-commerce, and the poor performance of New York sports teams.

In 1894, general store owner George R. Kinney opened a shoe store in Waverly, New York. The store grew in popularity and by 1955, it had 352 locations. In 1974, the Kinney brand opened Foot Locker, a division specifically for athletic shoes. All Kinney shoe stores were eventually shut down in 1998 to cut costs and shift the focus toward athletic shoes.

At the height of RadioShack’s popularity, the chain had 7,300 stores — something you might not have expected when the first store opened in 1921 in Boston as a small radio equipment retail and mail-order shop. In 1963, RadioShack was purchased by the Tandy Corporation, and CEO Charles Tandy helped the store reach its zenith in the 1970s. Eventually an overreliance on cellular products led to the store’s downfall; it shuttered in 2015.

When Marshall Field’s first opened in Chicago in 1852, the store was called P. Palmer & Co. after its founder, Potter Palmer. Palmer was an entrepreneur and hotelier who also opened the Palmer House, now a famous Hilton hotel in downtown Chicago. In 1865, Marshall Field and Levi Zeigler Leiter signed on as co-owners. Field took complete ownership in 1881, and the store was eventually rebranded as Marshall Field’s. The company closed in 2006.

In downtown Milwaukee, six duck statues — a mother duck and her five ducklings — overlook the Wisconsin River from their perches. The statues honor Gertie the Duck, who had nested outside Gimbels Department Store during World War II. The eggs eventually hatched, and after one particularly bad storm, Gimbels brought the family of ducks inside. They were kept in a climate-controlled window display and assigned nurses to watch over them. The chain closed in 1987.

Borders, which became known around the country for well-priced books and a great music selection, was founded in 1971 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, by brothers Tom and Louis Borders. It originally opened as a bookshop, and by the time music and movies were added to the stock in 1991, Borders had 21 stores. By 1998, there were 256 stores. The rise of e-books hit Borders hard, and the chain declared bankruptcy in 2011.

Before Sam Goody became a household name for selling records (and later cassettes and CDs), founder Sam Goody sold toys in his Manhattan store. In 1938, a customer asked for records, so Goody found some in the building’s basement, cleaned them up, and sold them for a profit. From that point on, records became his main business. His flagship music store opened in 1951, and by the late 1970s, the store was in some 250 malls around the country. The chain closed in 2012.

Linens ’N Things and Bed Bath & Beyond both had large retail spaces with a huge array of products, from furniture to pet supplies to cookware. Both were also founded in the 1970s in New Jersey, and their headquarters were only 16 miles apart. Due to poor strategic decisions and a large amount of private equity debt, however, Linens ’N Things declared bankruptcy in 2008 and closed its stores.

Tower Records founder Russ Solomon began selling records out of the back of his father’s drugstore in 1960, eventually building the business to a music powerhouse with more than 200 stores. Both the first Tower Records and the drugstore were near the Tower Theatre building in Sacramento, which inspired the name for the record store. Big box stores and digital music eventually took their toll on Tower Records, and the brand shuttered in 2006.

When Frank Winfield Woolworth opened his namesake store in Utica, New York, in 1879, he invented a new style of shopping: one where everything cost a nickel or a dime. The first store failed, but he opened a new one the following year, and the five and dime concept flourished. By 1982, Woolworth had more than 8,000 stores — though the prices rose in the 1930s thanks to inflation. In 1997, Woolworth’s went out of business, a victim of discount retailers.

Launched as a small Kansas chain founded by two cousins, Payless’ self-service, open-floor model allowed it to keep prices lower than those of most competitors. Payless was one of the many retail brands to ride the shopping mall wave of the 1970s and ’80s, as most locations were inside malls. After operating over 4,200 stores, the company declared bankruptcy in 2017 and closed all remaining stores in 2019.

Originally a single location in San Mateo selling beanbag chairs and incense to the 1960s counterculture generation, Pier 1 grew into a nationwide brand with over 1,000 stores across the country. The company was known for its unique array of goods from around the world — particularly South Asia — including tables shaped like animals, vintage lamps, and wicker furniture. Pier 1 closed its last store in 2020 but still operates online.

Founded as one Virginia store in 1949, Circuit City capitalized on the postwar appliance boom of the 1950s before pivoting to staples of the ’80s and ’90s such as VCRs and CDs. The brand also popularized the “superstore” model, a warehouse attached to a big display area to demo products. Facing pressure from competitors such as Best Buy and online shopping, Circuit City declared bankruptcy and liquidated in 2008.

Fans of the now-defunct toy store chain Toys R Us may have wondered why the “R” in the store name was written backwards. It was a very intentional choice. Founder Charles Lazarus, who started the chain in 1957 in Maryland, designed the logo with the backwards letter to make it look like a child wrote it. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2017, a victim of lower competitor prices and online shopping.

Blockbuster was founded in 1985 by David Cook, a Dallas programmer struggling to find work because of an oil and gas recession. Over the next two decades, the company grew to dominate the rental industry; by 2004, Blockbuster had over 9,000 stores and employed nearly 85,000 people. Despite this power position, the company was unable to adapt to the streaming era and filed for bankruptcy in 2010.

From 1908 to 1940, Sears Roebuck & Co. sold kit houses. Shoppers could choose a home from a printed picture of more than 450 different kits. Styles included a nine-room house called the Hillrose (about $56,000 in today’s dollars) and the 10-room Magnolia (about $103,000). Sears shipped everything you needed, from windows and tiling down to the nails and screws, along with a 75-page manual. Sears closed its last department store in 2021.

Founded in 1859, the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, better known as A&P, boasted around 14,000 “economy stores” in the United States by the year 1925. The grocery chain opened its first supermarket in 1936 and grew to become the largest retailer in the world. The success was not meant to last, however: A&P filed for bankruptcy in 2010 and was liquidated in 2015.