Excerpts: “Bankruptcy sale marks end of Carson’s.”

• The sale and closings will quietly mark the end of a company started in 1854 in Amboy, Illinois, by Samuel Carson and John T. Pirie. The company relocated to Chicago in the late 1860s, where it grew into Carson Pirie Scott & Co. department store with the help of partner Robert Scott, who joined the duo in 1890, according to the Encyclopedia of Chicago.
• Carson’s was a major presence on Chicago’s State Street for much of the 20th century, alongside other retail giants like Sears, Roebuck & Co. and Marshall Field & Co. At its peak, Carson’s employed 8,000 people and did around $150 million in annual sales.
• Over the past 30 years, the company underwent a number of ownership changes. In 1989, Carson’s was sold to Milwaukee-based P.A. Bergner and Co., but returned to an independent company following Bergner’s bankruptcy in 1991. It was acquired again in 1998 by Proffitt’s, Inc., which owned the Saks department store chain, then later bought by Bon-Ton in 2006.

Source: Daily Herald