Donaldson's
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| Department store | |
| Industry | Retail |
| Fate | Purchased by Carson Pirie Scott |
| Founded | 1883 |
| Defunct | 1987 |
| Headquarters | Minneapolis, Minnesota |
| Products | Clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, and housewares. |
| Website | None |
Donaldson's, also known as The L. S. Donaldson Company, Minneapolis, Minnesota is a defunct department store company.
The L. S. Donaldson Co., Minneapolis, Minnesota, was founded in 1883 by Scottish Immigrants. Built in 1884, the building was known as "The Glass Block" because of its extensive use of glass in its design. That building even included a small dome at the intersection of Nicollet Avenue and West Seventh Street, but it was dismantled for scrap metal during the Second World War. It was renovated beyond its historical recognition after the war. The store was acquired by Allied Stores Corp. in 1928.
In 1961, The Golden Rule store of St. Paul, Minnesota was transferred by Allied Stores to Donaldson's, and operated as Donaldson's Golden Rule until the mid-1960s when the name was changed to Donaldson's. The Golden Rule was purchased by Hahn in 1928.
In 1978, Donaldson's then parent company, Allied Stores transferred control of the three-store James Black Company chain of Waterloo, Iowa to Donaldson's.
Donaldson's flagship store left its old building for the new City Center development when it opened in 1982. The original store complex, which occupied half a city block, burned in a fire on Thanksgiving Day of that year due to arson, along with the Northwestern National Bank Building; the sites are currently occupied by the Gaviidae Common and Wells Fargo Center, respectively.
In 1985 the company acquired its struggling rival The Powers Dry Goods Company from Associated Dry Goods Corp., which gave it some breathing room against dominant rival Dayton's.
In 1987, after Campeau Corp.'s buy-out of Allied Stores Corp., Donaldson's was purchased by Carson Pirie Scott & Co. of Chicago, Illinois which made the ill-fated decision to rename the stores Carson's. Carson's in its turn was acquired by P.A. Bergner & Co. of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and formerly of Peoria, Illinois) in 1989, which filed for bankruptcy in 1991. Carson's and Bergner's are now owned by The Bon-Ton Stores.
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