|
HELP! Click here to e-mail your supermarket information
and/or pictures
1914 - Sam Seelig launches a chain of 4 stores in CA named Seelig Grocers.
1915 - Samuel M. Skaggs moved his family from Missouri to Idaho and
opened a grocery store (Skaggs Cash Stores).
1916 - S.M. Skaggs sells Skaggs Cash Stores
to his son, M.B. Skaggs, and moves to Oregon.
1917 - M.B. Skaggs, with the help of his brothers, begins opening
additional Skaggs Cash Stores.
1917 - American Stores Company (Acme
Markets) is founded in Philadelphia.
1917 - Katz Drugs is founded
when the Katz brothers add a pharmacy section to their confectionary
store in Kansas City.
1918 - Another brother, L.J. Skaggs returns from the military and
reenters the family business.
1919 - The Skaggs brothers form a partnership named
Skaggs United Stores. L.J.
Skaggs launches the Pay 'n Takit
chain
in Utah.
1919 - Harry and Robert Borun and Norman Levin founded Borun
Brothers (later Thrifty Drug), a
Los Angeles-based drug
wholesaler.
1925 - Seelig renames his stores Safeway.
1926 - There are 428 Skaggs Cash Stores
in 10 states. M.B. Skaggs brother, O.P. Skaggs begins opening
Skaggs Cash
Stores in NV and CA.
1926 - Seelig has over 322 Safeway
stores.
1926 - O.P. Skaggs sells many of his grocery stores to his brothers
(but not most of his CA stores or his drugstores).
1926 - Charles Merrill, a co-founder of Merrill Lynch, handles the
merger of Skaggs United Stores
and Safeway. M.B. Skaggs
is president of the merged company which takes the name
Skaggs Safeway and shortly after
named Safeway.
1928 - Pay 'n Takit stores
become a part of Safeway.
Safeway has 2,020 stores.
1929 - Borun Brothers opens its first retail drug store in Los
Angeles, CA named Thrifty Cut Rate
(later Thrifty Drug).
1930 - Skaggs acquires McMarr
Stores.
1931 - There are 3,527 Safeway
stores in the U.S. and Canada.
1931 - Peninsula Stores (later
Lucky Stores) is founded in
Dublin, CA.
1932 - L.J. Skaggs opens his first self-service drugstore in Tacoma,
WA named PayLess Drug.
1934 - Allen Rosenberg opens his first Thrifty Payless Drugs store in Arizona.
1937 - L.L. Skaggs and Harold Finch found Pay-Less Drug in Rochester, MN which is the Midwest's
first self-service drug store.
1938 - MN-based Pay-Less Drug
opens a 2nd store in Mason City, IO and renames the company
Self-Service Drug.
1938 - Joe Albertson (Albertsons)
enters into a partnership with L.S. Skaggs and opens a store in
Boise, ID.
1938 - M.B. Skaggs' son-in-law launches Long Drugs.
1939 - L.S. Skaggs leaves Safeway
and with 2 partners buy 4 Pay Less
stores from L.J. Skaggs in UT and ID.
1939 - O.P. Skaggs sells some of his Nebraska O.P.
Skaggs Cash Stores to George W.
Martin.
1939 - PayLess Drug Stores is
founded when Peyton Hawes and Wiliam Armitage acquire a controlling
interest in
5 drugstores in OR and WA.
1942 - L.L. Skaggs forms a partnership with 3 other men and name it
Owners Service Company (Osco).
Osco headquarters
are moved to
Chicago, IL.
1942 - Skaggs acquires the AZ-based Payless
Drug chain. MN-based Self-Service Drug becomes a
part of Osco Drug.
1942 - Thrifty Drug Stores has
58 stores.
1945 - C.J. Skaggs and a partner open the first
Sav-on Drug Store in San
Bernardino, CA.
1948 - Some PayLess Drug Stores
are renamed Skaggs Drug Stores.
1949 - There are 11 Pay Less Drug Stores.
1956 - General Electric sues some western retailers for selling its
products below the recommended price.
Skaggs Companies counter-sues and
wins, thus overturning the "fair
trade" laws in UT and other states.
1959 - George Martin launches Skagway
combination supermarket/department stores in Nebraska.
1961 - With 31 Osco drug stores
in 6 states, Jewel Companies
acquires Osco Drug.
1964 - The Martin family sells its O.P.
Skaggs Cash Stores but continues to own and operate its
Skagway
supermarket/department
stores.
1965 - Skaggs Drug Stores
incorporates as Skaggs Drug Centers
and over the next few years acquires the following drug
chains:
Josco, Harts,
Cook's,
Katz and the non-Califronia PayLess
stores.
1969 - Albertsons and Skaggs
partner to form Skaggs-Albertsons
combination food and drug stores. The chain grows to 58
stores
in OK and the Southeast.
1976 - PayLess acquires 22
Value Giant stores in CA.
1977 - The Skaggs-Albertsons
partnership is amicably dissolved, with Skaggs and Albertsons
splitting the assets evenly.
1978 - There are 202 Pay Less Drug Stores
and 39 Pay Less super centers in
21 states.
1979 - Skaggs Drug Centers
acquires American Stores Company
(Acme Markets,
Alpha Beta) and the company retains
the American Stores Company
name.
The
American Stores Company acquisition adds 785 food
centers and 139 drug stores to the 241 Skaggs stores.
1979 - Skaggs-Albertsons has 365 stores and sales of over $ 2
billion.
1980 - Safeway is the most
profitable grocery chain in the U.S.
1980 - L.J. Skaggs sells Oakland,CA-based
PayLess Drug Stores to Washington-Oregon
PayLess.
Jewel Companies
acquires
Sav-On Drugs of Southern CA.
1984 - American Stores Company
acquires Jewel Companies for $
1.1 billion in a hostile takeover in order to create the first
coast-to-coast drug store chain. This returned the
Sav-On Drugs and
Osco drug chains to Skaggs.
Skaggs Drugs
Centers are renamed
Osco.
1985 - With 183 stores, PayLess is acquired by
K-Mart.
1986 - In order to avoid a hostile takeover by Herbert Hart,
Safeway
is acquired by investment firm Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts &
Co. for $
5.3 billion and Safeway becomes a privately
traded company. Nearly half of Safeway's 2,200 stores are sold
in order to pay off debt incurred by the takeover, including the Safeway stores in England
and Australia.
1986 - Thrifty Drug begins opening its Wonder World
discount department stores.
1986 - Thrifty Drug has 594 drugstores and 94
Big 5 Sporting Goods
stores.
1987 - PayLess purchased 25
Osco stores in WA and ID.
1988 - American Stores Company acquires Dublin, CA-based
Lucky
Stores.
1990 - American Stores Company has 1,848 stores.
1990 - Safeway stores becomes a publicly-traded company once again
and acquires Randalls in TX,
Carrs in AK,
Dominicks
in IL and
Vons
in CA.
1991 - PayLess acquired 52
Osco stores in CO, WY and UT.
1992 - Albertsons purchases 74
Jewel-Osco food and drug combination
stores from American Stores Company.
1992 - PayLess acquired the assets of 124
Pay 'n Save stores in AK,
HI, WA and ID.
1994 - Los Angeles-based TCH Corp., the parent company of Thrifty
Drugs purchased PayLess Drug Stores Northwest, Inc.
(543 stores)
which was then a wholly-owned subsidiary of
K-Mart.
The company is renamed Thrifty PayLess Holdings.
1996 - American Stores Company is the nation's 2nd largest
supermarket chain with 802 supermarkets and 773 stand-alone
drugstores in 31 states.
1998 - Albertsons acquires
American Stores Company for $ 12.7
billion and becomes the nation's largest supermarket chain.
1999 - All Lucky Stores are renamed
Albertsons.
2000 - PayLess Drug is sold to
Rite Aid.
2003 - There are over 600 Osco Drug stores in 19 states.
2003 - Safeway has over 1,700 stores in the U.S. and Canada which
include 329 Vons stores in CA and NV, 132
Randalls and
Tom Thumb
stores in TX, 42
Genuardi's stores in the
Philadelphia area and 21 Carr's stores in AK.
Albertsons
operates over 2,500 stores in 38 states.
2006 - There are over 450 Long Drugs stores in 6 western states.
2006 - Albertsons is sold for $ 17.4 billion to
SuperValu (1,124
stores), CVS (700 stand-alone
Sav-On and
Osco drugstores)
and the
remaining 655 Albertsons supermarkets to investors
led by NY-based Cerberus.
2006 - With the Albertsons acquisition,
SuperValu becomes the
nation's 2nd largest supermarket chain behind
Kroger.
Acme Markets
Albertsons
Alpha Beta Stores
American Stores Company
Jewel Stores
Lucky Stores Payless Supermarkets
Safeway
Skagway
HELP! Click here to e-mail your supermarket information and/or pictures
Sources: Michael
Strauch, Wikipedia |