The Bon Marché, whose French name translates to "the good market" or "the good deal", was a
department store
A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...
chain launched in
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
, Washington, United States, in 1890 by Edward Nordhoff.
The name was influenced by
Le Bon Marché, the noted
Parisian retailer.
In 1929, The Bon Marché was acquired by Hahn Department Stores, itself folded into
Allied Stores a few years later.
A solid middle-range store, The Bon served largely working-class Seattle. Branches were also added in several cities of the
Northwestern United States. Among them were
Spokane,
Tacoma,
Yakima,
Kennewick,
Longview,
Walla Walla Walla Walla can refer to:
* Walla Walla people, a Native American tribe after which the county and city of Walla Walla, Washington, are named
* Place of many rocks in the Australian Aboriginal Wiradjuri language, the origin of the name of the town ...
,
Olympia
The name Olympia may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Film
* ''Olympia'' (1938 film), by Leni Riefenstahl, documenting the Berlin-hosted Olympic Games
* ''Olympia'' (1998 film), about a Mexican soap opera star who pursues a career as an athlet ...
, and
Bellingham, Washington,
Casper, Wyoming
Casper is a city in, and the county seat of, Natrona County, Wyoming, United States. Casper is the second-largest city in the state, with the population at 59,038 as of the 2020 census. Only Cheyenne, the state capital, is larger. Casper is nic ...
,
Missoula, Montana,
Great Falls, Montana
Great Falls is the third most populous city in the U.S. state of Montana and the county seat of Cascade County. The population was 60,442 according to the 2020 census. The city covers an area of and is the principal city of the Great Falls, M ...
,
Idaho Falls, Idaho
Idaho Falls (Shoshoni language, Shoshoni: Dembimbosaage) is a city in and the county seat of Bonneville County, Idaho, Bonneville County, Idaho, United States. It is the state's largest city outside the Boise metropolitan area. As of the 2020 Un ...
,
Pocatello, Idaho
Pocatello () is the county seat of and largest city in Bannock County, with a small portion on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in neighboring Power County, in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Idaho. It is the principal city of the ...
, and
Boise, Idaho. Commonly known to customers as The Bon, the company dropped the Marché from their name in the late 1970s before reinstating it by the mid-1980s.
The Bon was known for their catchy jingles, such as the following to the tune of "
The Banana Boat Song": "Day-o, One Day Sale, One day only at The Bon Marché! Save 20, 30, 40 percent (example savings)! Saturday only at the Bon Marche. Prices are down in every department! Saturday only at the Bon Marche!..." This jingle continued after the name was changed to Bon-Macy's, with the appropriate changes. In the 1960s, The Bon also used some cuts from
PAMS
PAMS Productions, Inc. (an acronym for Production, Advertising and Merchandising Service), based in Dallas, Texas, was one of the most famous jingle production companies in American broadcasting. It produced identification packages for radio stat ...
' Series 23 jingle package, "Ani-Magic" in the 1960s.
Allied Stores was merged into
Federated Department Stores
Macy's, Inc. (originally Federated Department Stores, Inc.) is an American conglomerate holding company. Upon its establishment, Federated held ownership of the regional department store chains Abraham & Straus, Lazarus, Filene's, and Shillito ...
in 1989. As part of its national rebranding program, Federated changed the name to Bon-Macy's in 2003.
On March 6, 2005, the Bon-Macy's name was eliminated, with the stores renamed as the
Macy's Northwest
Macy's West is a longtime division of Macy's, Inc. (formerly Federated Department Stores), representing one of the New York-based department store chain's earliest notable acquisitions and westward expansions. Headquartered in San Francisco, C ...
division of Federated.
On February 6, 2008, the Macy's Northwest division was merged with the Macy's West division, based in San Francisco.
History
Origins and establishment
The Bon Marché was founded in 1890 by Edward and Josephine Nordhoff, who had moved to Seattle from Chicago. Edward Nordhoff was a German immigrant who had worked for the Louvre Department Store in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
, which competed with the Maison of Aristide Boucicaut "Au
Bon Marché" (now part of the LVMH group). Nordhoff moved to Chicago in 1881 and managed a department store in Chicago where he met his wife Josephine, who was a clerk 13 years his junior.
The Nordhoffs leased a small storefront in modern-day
Belltown at 1st Avenue and Cedar Street that cost $25 per month. They invested their entire savings account into merchandise for the store and worked to attract customers away from the city's main retail district. Josephine Nordhoff stocked shelves, kept the books, and cleaned the store;
she later learned the
Chinook language to wait on Native American customers. To keep customers during the economic panic of the early 1890s, the Nordhoffs stocked sacks of pennies to provide small discounts.
The growing success of the store allowed the Nordhoffs to relocate closer to the business district in 1896, leasing an L-shaped building at 2nd Avenue and Pike Street.
Initial growth and expansion
![Victory Loan parade, marching north on 2nd Ave at Pike St, Seattle, April 21, 1919 (CURTIS 517)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Victory_Loan_parade%2C_marching_north_on_2nd_Ave_at_Pike_St%2C_Seattle%2C_April_21%2C_1919_%28CURTIS_517%29.jpeg)
In 1899, at age 40, Edward died of an illness his doctor called phthisis, probably
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...
(Phthisis pulmonalis). Josephine remarried two years later. Her new husband, Frank McDermott, joined her and Rudolph Nordhoff, Edward's brother, in operating The Bon Marché. The store entered a period of rapid growth under the management of this trio. Sales increased from $338,000 in 1900 to $8 million in 1923.
[Sewell, Cynthia]
Downtown Boise loses an anchor with Macy's closure
'' Idaho Statesman'' January 6, 2010. Retrieved 2010-00-21. The store was enlarged twice at its Second and Pike location, in 1902 and 1911. In 1929, The Bon Marché opened at Third and Pine. That year, the store was sold to Hahn Stores of Chicago, which was acquired by
Allied Stores five years later. Both corporations continued to operate the store under its original name. In 1937, The Bon Marché opened its first store outside of Washington through a merger of
Boise, Idaho-based C.C. Anderson's into The Bon Marché by Allied Stores. The downtown Boise store remained in operation for more than 70 years, until early 2010, albeit as a Macy's for its final few years.
The Bon began opening additional stores after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. In 1949, it provided the anchor store for one of the world's first modern shopping centers, at
Northgate Mall. By 1986, when
Campeau Corporation
Campeau Corporation was a Canadian real estate development and investment company founded by entrepreneur Robert Campeau. It was infamous from its ultimately unsuccessful acquisitions of American department store holding companies Allied Stor ...
acquired Allied Stores, the Bon Marché was one of the best-known retailers in the Northwest, with about 40 stores throughout the region. In 1978, the company acquired nine stores including Missoula Mercantile of
Missoula, Montana. The Missoula store closed as Macy's in 2010.
The Bon also opened and operated three stores in
Utah
Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...
: The largest one was in
Ogden, at the
Ogden City Mall
The Junction is a entertainment, retail, office, and residential complex in downtown Ogden, Utah, Ogden City, built on the site of the former Ogden City Mall. Its development has been coordinated and subsidized by Ogden City, in an effort to revi ...
. The second was in
Layton Hills Mall
Layton Hills Mall is an enclosed shopping mall in Layton, Utah, United States. Opened in 1980, the mall features Dick's Sporting Goods, Dillard's, and JCPenney as its anchor stores. The mall is owned by CBL & Associates Properties.
History
The mal ...
in
Layton
Layton or The Laytons may refer to:
Places
United States
* Layton, Florida, a city
* Layton, Indiana, an unincorporated community
* Layton Township, Pottawattamie County, Iowa
* Layton, New Jersey, an unincorporated community
* Layton, Pennsyl ...
, a bedroom community north of Salt Lake City. Third was the smallest store in the entire chain -
Logan
Logan may refer to:
Places
* Mount Logan (disambiguation)
Australia
* Logan (Queensland electoral district), an electoral district in the Queensland Legislative Assembly
* Logan, Victoria, small locality near St. Arnaud
* Logan City, local gover ...
. This store was located in the
Cache Valley Mall
Cache Valley Mall is a shopping mall located in Logan, Utah that opened in 1976. The mall has no anchors, with three vacant anchors last occupied by C-A-L Ranch, Herberger's and JCPenney. The mall is owned by Namdar Realty Group.
History
The ma ...
. The stores in Ogden and Logan were sold to
Lamonts
Lamonts was a chain of department stores founded in Seattle, Washington. The chain was started in 1970 when Pay 'n Save renamed its suburban branches of Rhodes, a department store chain the company acquired in 1965. Lamonts remained a division of ...
department stores in 1988 because they weren't performing well for the company. Layton's location remained open until 1993, when it was sold to
After yet another change in corporate ownership in 1990, the Bon ended up in the hands of
Federated Department Stores
Macy's, Inc. (originally Federated Department Stores, Inc.) is an American conglomerate holding company. Upon its establishment, Federated held ownership of the regional department store chains Abraham & Straus, Lazarus, Filene's, and Shillito ...
, a Cincinnati-based company which also owns the
Macy's
Macy's (originally R. H. Macy & Co.) is an American chain of high-end department stores founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. It became a division of the Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores in 1994, through which it is affiliated wi ...
and
Bloomingdales
Bloomingdale's Inc. is an American luxury department store chain; it was founded in New York City by Joseph B. and Lyman G. Bloomingdale in 1861. A third brother, Emanuel Watson Bloomingdale, was also involved in the business. It became a div ...
chains. In 2001, The Bon Marché debuted a prototype store in
Helena, Montana
Helena (; ) is the capital city of Montana, United States, and the county seat of Lewis and Clark County.
Helena was founded as a gold camp during the Montana gold rush, and established on October 30, 1864. Due to the gold rush, Helena would ...
. The store featured everything a typical Bon Marché had plus centralized checkouts.
[Batsell, Jake (November 1, 2001). "Bon thinking outside the box: Experimental store to offer centralized checkout, faster shopping". ''The Seattle Times'', p. C1.]
Name changes
In August 2003, Federated "rebranded" The Bon Marché, turning it into Bon-Macy's. Federated also tacked Macy's onto the names of four other regional chains under its umbrella (
Burdines in Florida,
Lazarus in the Midwest,
Goldsmith's
Goldsmith's was a department store founded in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1870 by German immigrant brothers Jacob and Isaac Goldsmith. It grew into a chain largely located in the Memphis metropolitan area, until 2005, when the nameplate was eliminated ...
in Tennessee, and
Rich's in the Southeast). Customers had about a year to get used to that change when, in September 2004, Federated announced that all its regional chains would be renamed Macy's.
As of 2004, Bon-Macy's consisted of 50 stores in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. New store signs, reading simply Macy's, were in place by January 2005.
The
former flagship store in downtown Seattle retains one small, original example of The Bon Marché signage; this can be seen above the north entrance of the store, at the corner of 4th Ave & Olive Way.
On February 6, 2008, Terry Lundgren announced the localization strategy and the company's plan to shed 2,550 jobs. This included laying off the Macy's Northwest headquarters and merging all of the former The Bon Marché stores under the Macy's West division.
Advertising jingle
Beginning in the 1990s, The Bon Marché used an advertising jingle for its "One Day Sale" based on the song "
Day-O" by
Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte (born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927) is an American singer, activist, and actor. As arguably the most successful Jamaican-American pop star, he popularized the Trinbagonian Caribbean musical style with an interna ...
. It was used in television and radio commercials into the 2000s and later entered local pop culture.
See also
*
List of defunct department stores of the United States
References
Further reading
Bon-Macy's list of locations as of 2003 - The Internet Archive
External links
History of Federated Department Stores
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bon Marche, The
American companies established in 1890
American companies disestablished in 2005
Retail companies established in 1890
Retail companies disestablished in 2005
1890 establishments in Washington (state)
2005 disestablishments in Washington (state)
1929 mergers and acquisitions
1989 mergers and acquisitions
Defunct department stores based in Washington State
Defunct companies based in Seattle
History of Seattle
Macy's