Turn Style was a chain of discount department stores and was a division of Chicago-based Jewel, the parent company of the Jewel Food Stores supermarket chain. Some mid-western Turn Styles had an Osco Pharmacy, at the time very uncommon for a discount store in the 1960s and 1970s. At its peak, the chain comprised more than fifty stores throughout Chicago, as well as in downstate

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, Moline, Illinois; Davenport, Iowa; Omaha, Nebraska; Boston, Massachusetts;

Merrillville, Indiana Merrillville is a town in Ross Township, Lake County, Indiana, United States. The population was 35,246 at the 2010 census. Merrillville is in east-central Lake County, in the Chicago metropolitan area. On January 1, 2015, Merrillville became the ...

;

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, and Racine, Wisconsin.

History

Turn Style was a

Brighton, Massachusetts Brighton is a Municipal annexation in the United States, former town and current Neighborhoods in Boston, neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States, located in the northwestern corner of the city. It is named after the English city of ...

-based discount department store chain that was founded by Harold Sparks who had open his first store in

Lynn, Massachusetts Lynn is the eighth-largest municipality in Massachusetts and the largest city in Essex County. Situated on the Atlantic Ocean, north of the Boston city line at Suffolk Downs, Lynn is part of Greater Boston's urban inner core. Settled by E ...

in 1957.Alternate Link
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ProQuest ProQuest LLC is an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based global information-content and technology company, founded in 1938 as University Microfilms by Eugene B. Power. ProQuest is known for its applications and information services for libraries, provid ...

. This was the first discount department store that had opened in the state of Massachusetts and the second in New England following the opening of

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which had just opened 7 months earlier in neighboring Connecticut. Other locations were quickly open in Massachusetts in Brighton (1958),Alternate Link
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(1960), and Medford (1961).Alternate Link
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. Jewel acquired the Turn Style brand in 1961Link
via

. and began rapidly expanding the chain. Sales for the 1961 year were listed as $14 million U.S. dollars with four stores, with headquarters in

.Discount Merchandiser magazine, July 1986 issue At its peak, the chain operated throughout the Midwest, as well as in the Boston, Massachusetts area. Within three years of opening a store in

Racine, Wisconsin Racine ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Racine County, Wisconsin, United States. It is located on the shore of Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Root River. Racine is situated 22 miles (35 km) south of Milwaukee and approximately 60 ...

, profits as measured on a ROI basis were the highest within Jewel Companies. Rapid expansion, the corporate decision to incorporate a catalog type store within its four walls, and an unrealistic divisive venture into the "

Hypermarket A hypermarket (sometimes called a hyperstore, supercentre or superstore) is a big-box store combining a supermarket and a department store. The result is an expansive retail facility carrying a wide range of products under one roof, including ...

" business, all caused profits to suffer. The economy also caused Jewel to rethink its growth strategy and the decision was made to sell Turn Style in order to concentrate its growth within its core businesses, which were food stores and drugstores. In 1978, 19 out of 22 of the existing stores were sold to

May Department Stores The May Department Stores Company was an American department store holding company, formerly headquartered in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. It was founded in Leadville, Colorado, by David May in 1877, moving to St. Louis in 1905. After many ch ...

and converted to the

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format.Alternate Link
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. Other stores were converted to large Osco Drug Stores, and some were closed entirely.

References

{{reflist, 30em Defunct discount stores of the United States Retail companies established in 1957 Retail companies disestablished in 1978 1957 establishments in Massachusetts 1978 disestablishments in Massachusetts