The Fair Store the store would be completed on that site in 1897. The Fair Store promoted itself as a Discount Department Store in the early 1900s. In 1915, a booklet published by the store stated "The Fair Store is still, as it always has been and undoubtedly always will be, the store of the people, the down-town shopping center for the Savers, the market place for the Thrifty." In 1925 the business was sold to a syndicate headed by S.S. Kresge (predecessor firm of Kmart). Under its management, branches were opened on Milwaukee Avenue (1929), in Oak Park, Illinois (1929), at the
Charles T. Kresge and the Thomas Alva Edison Award in 2008. He was also honored by election to the US National Academy of Engineering (2007). In 2011, he was Honorary Chair of the 22nd North American Catalysis Society meeting in Detroit, Michigan. Charles T. Kresge Charles T. Kresge is a chemist and retired Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Saudi Aramco. He was R&D Vice President at the Dow Chemical Company. His area of expertise is inorganic synthesis and his primary field of research is in the area of crystalline aluminosilicate materials, particularly for the discovery of mesoporous molecular sieves. Kresge received his bachelor's