Illinois

Carson Pirie Scott & Co. grew from a frontier dry-goods business into a leading Chicago department store, best remembered for its State Street flagship wrapped in Louis Sullivan's ornate cast-iron ironwork — a landmark of American architecture. 'Carson's' anchored Midwestern malls for decades under various owners before being absorbed into the Bon-Ton Stores, whose 2018 liquidation finally closed the chain.

Family Video outlasted nearly every competitor by owning its real estate rather than leasing, keeping costs low and renting on properties it controlled. Concentrated in the Midwest and South, it stayed family-owned, leaned on free-rental promotions, and even added pizza shops and fitness centers to its buildings. The pandemic finally did what streaming had been doing for years, and Family Video closed its last stores in 2021 — the end of the American video-store era.

Marshall Field's grew from a Chicago dry-goods house into one of America's grandest department stores, anchored by its State Street flagship with its Tiffany favrile-glass ceiling and landmark clocks. The store built its reputation on lavish service — 'Give the lady what she wants' — and on signatures like the Walnut Room restaurant and Frango mints. Federated Department Stores bought the chain and rebranded all Marshall Field's locations as Macy's in 2006, to lasting protest from loyal Chicagoans.

Aaron Montgomery Ward launched the world's first general-merchandise mail-order business in 1872, selling to rural customers through a single-sheet price list that grew into a hefty catalog known as the 'Wish Book.' The company opened retail stores in the 1920s and competed head-to-head with Sears for decades. Its copywriter created Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer as a 1939 holiday giveaway. After years of decline, Montgomery Ward closed its stores and catalog in 2001.

Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck built a mail-order watch business into Sears, Roebuck and Co., whose thick catalog — the 'Consumer's Bible' — sold everything from tools to entire build-it-yourself houses to rural America. Sears opened retail stores in the 1920s, anchored countless malls, and launched powerhouse brands like Craftsman, Kenmore, and DieHard, even building the world's tallest tower in Chicago. A long decline accelerated after a 2005 merger with Kmart under Eddie Lampert, ending in a 2018 bankruptcy that left only a remnant of stores standing.