Hills Department Stores

Hills Department Stores

Industry	Retail
Fate	Merged into Ames
Successor	Ames
Founded	1957 Youngstown, Ohio
Defunct	August 1999
Headquarters	Canton, Massachusetts
Products	Clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, seasonal, beauty products, electronics, toys, and housewares.

Hills was a discount department store chain based in Canton, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1957 in Youngstown, Ohio, and existed until 1999 when it was acquired by Ames. Most stores were located in Ohio, Indiana, New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, though the company did make a push into other markets. It pushed further south and had several stores in Virginia, Tennessee, and Alabama and west into Michigan.

In the late 1950s, Hills stores were full-fledged department stores (as opposed to the discount department stores for which the chain later became known).

Herbert H. Goldberger, the founder of Hills, sold the chain to SCOA Industries, (Shoe Company of America), of Columbus, Ohio, in 1964. He remained as president of Hills until 1981, when his son succeeded him. Goldberger was the vice president and director of SCOA when, in 1985, he led a management buyout of Hills.

Hills went public in 1987, becoming the nation's eighth-largest discount retailer. In November 1990, Goldberger's son resigned, according to a Hills statement, and was replaced by Jack Brouillard. Goldberger's resignation from his family business surprised some observers. He had been the chain's president and CEO since 1981, and assumed the role of board chairman when his father died in 1987. Stephen Goldberger also introduced several other changes, including acceptance of credit cards and rollout of UPC scanning.

In 1989, Hills bought 35 of the Worthington, Ohio,-based Gold Circle locations. In the New York and Ohio area, many of these locations had previously been Twin Fair, Inc., stores prior to 1982.

Hills had its own private label under which various goods were marketed. It was called "American Spirit".

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Wikipedia