Kmart Corporation. Sears Holdings, the parent company of Kmart, declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 15, 2018. S. S. Kresge, the founder of the company that would become Kmart, met variety-store pioneer Frank Winfield Woolworth while working as a traveling salesman and selling to all 19 of Woolworth's stores at the time. In 1897 Kresge invested $6,700 saved from his job into a five-and-dime store in Memphis, Tennessee. He jointly owned the first store with his former tinware customer, John McCrory. Kresge and McCrory added a second store in downtown Detroit the following year. These were the first S.S. Kresge stores.
Barker's Discount Department Stores Barker's Discount Department Stores Barkers Discount Department Stores was a chain of discount department stores founded in May, 1957 by Irving Barker. As one of the first hard goods discounters, and with creative promotions, the initial store, in Orange, Connecticut, grew quickly with a wide variety of products for the home arranged in a supermarket style. This success spawned a second 40,000 sq. ft. location in Wallingford, Connecticut in 1960. The company was sold to Franklin Stores Corporation in 1961, and then grew quickly throughout the Northeast and South Central United States, the Caribbean, and the United States Virgin Islands.