The Powers Dry Goods Company of Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...

 was a department store

Department store

A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...

 chain that its peak consisted of 7 locations.

Powers was founded in Minneapolis as the S.E. Olson Co. in 1881, but was acquired and renamed by St. Paul dry-goods merchants Alanzo J. and Fred Powers. It was itself acquired in the 1920s by Associated Dry Goods

Associated Dry Goods

Associated Dry Goods was a chain of department stores that merged with May Department Stores in 1986. It was founded in 1916 as an association of independent stores called American Dry Goods, based in New York City.-History:...

.

In 1985, it was acquired from Associated Dry Goods by The L.S. Donaldson Company

Donaldson's

Donaldson's, also known as The L. S. Donaldson Company, Minneapolis, Minnesota is a defunct department store company.-History:The L. S. Donaldson Co., Minneapolis, Minnesota, was founded in 1883 by Scottish Immigrants. Built in 1884, the building was known as "The Glass Block" because of its...

 (also of Minneapolis, a unit of Allied Stores

Allied Stores

Allied Stores was a department store chain in the United States. It was founded in the 1930s as part of a general consolidation in the retail sector by B. E. Puckett. See also Associated Dry Goods. It was the successor to Hahn's Department Stores, a holding company founded in 1928...

 Corp.), which gave Donaldson's some breathing room against dominant rival Dayton's

Dayton's

Minneapolis-based Dayton's was among the leading department stores in the United States for nearly a century after its founding in 1902 by George Draper Dayton. In 1969, the Detroit-based J.L. Hudson Company merged with the Dayton Corporation to form the Dayton-Hudson Corporation, adding 21...

. In 1987, after Campeau Corp.'s buy-out of Allied Stores Corp., Donaldson's was purchased by Carson Pirie Scott & Co. of Chicago, Illinois which made the ill-fated decision to rename the stores with its own name.

Carson's in its turn was acquired by P.A. Bergner & Co.

Bergner's

Bergner's is a major department store in central and northern Illinois, established in 1889 in Peoria, Illinois, and offering mid-line to higher end merchandise in their largest stores. The current flagship store is located in Peoria at The Shoppes at Grande Prairie.-Beginnings:Bergner's was...

 of Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Milwaukee is the largest city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, the 28th most populous city in the United States and 39th most populous region in the United States. It is the county seat of Milwaukee County and is located on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan. According to 2010 census data, the...

 (and formerly of Peoria, Illinois

Peoria, Illinois

Peoria is the largest city on the Illinois River and the county seat of Peoria County, Illinois, in the United States. It is named after the Peoria tribe. As of the 2010 census, the city was the seventh-most populated in Illinois, with a population of 115,007, and is the third-most populated...

) in 1989, which in turn filed for bankruptcy in 1991. In 1995 Carson's sold the rump of the former Twin Cities area locations (formerly Powers/Donaldsons) to Dayton's parent Dayton Hudson Corp., which re-opened most of them under its moderate Mervyn's chain, mostly in a move to prevent serious competition in its Twin Cities stronghold. In 2004 when Dayton's successor Marshall Field's

Marshall Field's

Marshall Field & Company was a department store in Chicago, Illinois that grew to become a major chain before being acquired by Macy's Inc...

 was acquired by May Department Stores

May Department Stores

The May Department Stores Company was a national department store chain in the United States, founded in 1877 by David May. The company ceased to exist in 2005 when it was merged with Federated Department Stores, Inc . Prior to the merger it was headquartered in Downtown St. Louis, Missouri...

, it also agreed to buy the former Donaldson/Powers locations operated by Mervyn's, and promptly shuttered them, selling the real-estate piecemeal.

Stores

Among those stores, in 1960, was stand-alone department store in the Highland Park neighborhood of Saint Paul, Minnesota

Saint Paul, Minnesota

Saint Paul is the capital and second-most populous city of the U.S. state of Minnesota. The city lies mostly on the east bank of the Mississippi River in the area surrounding its point of confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Minneapolis, the state's largest city...

, which was converted to a Carson Pirie Scott store and ultimately razed in 1994. The first store was located in the center of the Minneapolis shopping district at 215 Nicollet Avenue.