Talk:List of defunct department stores of the United States

Reconsider the subdivision by state

I appreciate the effort that went into subdividing this new article by state, but my initial reaction to the subdivision is that it doesn't work.

The most significant issue is that many of these stores were located in more than one state. For example, I recall Hess's as being a department store in Tennessee, not Pennsylvania, where it is listed in this article. The store that I remember as Hess's had previously been Miller's, then was converted to Hess's (now that I am reminded, I remember that this happened when Miller's was bought by a Pennsylvania company), then became Proffitt's, and finally was absorbed into Belk. Since Hess's operated in 11 states, listing Hess's under Pennsylvania (where its corporate headquarters was located) will prevent many seekers of knowledge from finding the information. Then there's Gimbel's -- yes, it's widely known to be a New York store, but it was founded in Indiana, there were separate Gimbel's divisions in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and there also were stores in New Jersey and Connecticut.

A secondary issue is that New England (a subdivision on the current list) isn't a state, and should not appear on a list of states alongside real states such as Alabama, California, Idaho, New York, etc.

Let's return this list to its former alphabetical format. --orlady 04:19, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Just found this list, and I have to agree with the above comment. Listing by state is confusing, and both makes it hard to find things, and results in redundancies. For example: Woolworth's, listed under "New York" at it's peak operated more than 2000 stores, in virtually every US state, as well as Canada, Ireland, Germany, Austria, and several other countries.

Makes a great deal more sense to list the stores alphabetically.

Might be a good idea to redo this page in Table format, also. Suggested columns could be: Store Name; Place Founded; Date Founded; Date Defunct; # of Stores at Peak; Other Names (AKA).

70.89.176.249 (talk) 22:48, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

I also agree that an alphabetical listing by store name would be far more useful and informative than the current listing by state. Looks like changing the "by state" listing has been suggested for going on 14 years now. Is anybody actually going to change it?

74.95.43.253 (talk) 21:40, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

I took care of Michigan. And that illustrates what can be done in a "by state" listing. This requires effort by editors to fill out each state. Nothing inherently wrong with this organization, IMO. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 15:20, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

List inclusion criteria

Per WP:LIST in order to make this a maintainable article that does not fail WP:NOT, this list needs inclusion criteria. Until another is agreed upon, I suggest the common criteria of only listing entries with their own articles. --Ronz (talk) 19:23, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

• I strongly disagree. As indicated at WP:LIST#Information, a list can be a valuable information source even if it does not point readers to articles about the list elements. I submit that this list of defunct department stores is an excellent example of a list that can be a valuable resource even in the absence of articles about the list elements. Furthermore, see Wikipedia:Lists (stand-alone lists)#Lead and selection criteria, which states "Ideally each entry on a list should have its own Wikipedia article but this is not required if it is reasonable to expect an article could be forthcoming in the future; the one exception is for list articles that are created explicitly because the listed items do not warrant independent articles: an example of this is List of minor characters in Dilbert." --Orlady (talk) 19:51, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

See WP:WTAF. Another alternative is to provide references for entries or sections of entries. --Ronz (talk) 19:58, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

The most notable topic behind this list is the rapid sequence of events (including serial mergers, acquisitions, renamings, and closures) that resulted in the disappearance of many long-standing retail institutions across the United States. The list is useful as a tool for keeping track of the names of these vanished stores, and who absorbed whom. The list has value, whether or not there is a separate article about every store on the list. However, references are sorely needed. --Orlady (talk) 15:48, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

References would solve the problem. Unfortunately there are none at all. I've tagged it as unreferenced, but I think this type of list is unfit for Wikipedia. Let's see if some editors come through with references. Even external links to similar lists would be helpful. --Ronz (talk) 15:59, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

There are a lot of references now. And there are way more out there. But it requires editors and lots of work to do what I accomplished in the Michigan section. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 15:41, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Unimart

Possible missing entry: there was a large Unimart on Hollywood Way in Burbank circa 1962 until circa 1971. I have no idea as to how many stores comprised the chain. I believe that Unimart has no relation to Uni-Mart. LorenzoB (talk) 04:31, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

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sourcechecked=true webarchive link takes a while to come up, title search of archives at original site comes up empty.  —jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 05:47, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

not notable?

Is Odd Job Stores Inc. notable enough to be on the list?Ssjhowarthisawesome (talk) 23:59, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

The multi-state chain is already listed under the List of defunct department stores of the United States#National and regional section. 50.195.200.161 (talk) 02:57, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

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Stores wrongly listed in "Department stores merged with Federated and May" section

Neither W.T. Grant now Zayre belong in this section. They had nothing to do with Federated or May or any of their predecessors or subsidiaries.

Great source

The Department Store Museum is there starting archives. And here With lots of additional material added therafter. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 19:06, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Attribution

Text and references copied from List of defunct department stores of the United States to The Arbaugh, See former article's history for a list of contributors. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 12:22, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Text and references copied from List of defunct department stores of the United States to William Milliken, See former article's history for a list of contributors. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 13:17, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Text and references copied from The Arbaugh to List of defunct department stores of the United States, See former article's history for a list of contributors. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 15:13, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Text and references copied from List of defunct department stores of the United States to Zayre, See former article's history for a list of contributors. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 14:21, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Text and references copied from Shoppers Fair to List of defunct department stores of the United States. See former article's history for a list of contributors. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 13:11, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Text and references copied from List of defunct department stores of the United States to Fashion Square Mall. See former article's history for a list of contributors. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 12:26, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Text and references copied from List of defunct department stores of the United States to Lauerman Brothers Department Store. See former article's history for a list of contributors. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 15:00, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Text and references copied from Lauerman Brothers Department Store to List of defunct department stores of the United States See former article's history for a list of contributors. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 15:06, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Goedeker's 1847

Goedeker's 1847 filed for bankruptcy, despite being founded in 1951. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 16:35, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

References

Do not remove this source Source removed

User:Kuru This edit was reverted as being unhelpful.
The source you removed is the unique and ONLY source for a number of the mentioned Michigan stores. You removed the source for them! That content is similar to Wikipedia's article now does not mean it should be eliminated. You trashed the sourcing. "List of Defunct Department Stores of the United States". alchetron.com. Retrieved March 8, 2024. They may have copied some from the Wikipdia page, but they had stores that were not otherwise available. I know where they came from, as I put them into the Wikipedia page, and some of them came from there. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 12:25, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Apologies, this did not ping me and I just noticed it after reverting your change again. This is not a source, this is a simple copy of an older version of this article. If you put them on the page without a source, and another site copied the page, this is a WP:CIRCULAR source. I'm not sure how that makes any sense to you at all. Alchetron copies articles here verbatim; it's an open platform now as well, and is simply not a reliable source. I would invite you to start a discussion at WP:RSN if you feel that WP:MIRRORS and open wikis can now be used. Thanks. Sam Kuru (talk) 13:52, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

No, it is not a "simple copy of an older version." I am the only one putting in the Michigan stores. That's been true for a long time. I do not know how the website compiled its information. You are right about the attribution on their page. Do you? Point me to the earlier version if you can, please. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 16:10, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Certainly. Most likely around 2/19/17. That version includes addition of "Woodward & Lothrop", as does the mirror at Alchetron - including the ". Von Maur" typo added a few edits before. The articles line up exactly, with only minor scraping artifacts manifesting (the bullet indentation is lost when it was copied, as was the "other department stores" subheader. Sam Kuru (talk) 20:34, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Whatever. The offending citation has been removed. And I improved the citations. Thank you and you're welcome. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 23:21, 13 March 2024 (UTC)