Fred Meyer of Alaska Inc history

1889 Young Grubmeyer emigrates with his family from Germany to New York, settling in Brooklyn, where the family ran a small grocery store.

Fred G. Meyer (originally Frederick Grubmeyer) came to Portland, Oregon in 1908 when he was 22 years old.

1909 Grubmeyer Comes to Town After an unsuccessful stint at gold mining in Alaska and a job driving for a grocery store in Seattle, he comes to Portland and builds a coffee cart business into a retail outlet in a downtown street market.

1911 Grubmeyer opens a brick-and-mortar coffee stall on Washington Street.

With the addition of Fox Jewelry, which had been founded in 1917 with a store in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Fred Meyer became the fourth-largest fine jewelry chain in the country.

Fred Meyer continued expanding throughout the 1920s.

Fred Meyer, Inc. traces its history to 1922, when its first store opened in downtown Portland, Oregon.

1923: Fred Meyer Inc. is incorporated in Oregon.

1930 A Growing Concern Fred Meyer, Inc. will eventually grow into a chain of stores and restaurants employing more than 13,000, with annual sales of more than $1 billion.

The Hollywood store which opened in 1931 had a rooftop parking lot, a first for the city and a great draw for customers for both the convenience and the novelty of it.

Founded in 1948 and headquartered in Salt Lake City, Smith's large stores combined full-line supermarkets with drug and pharmacy departments and operated under the names Smith's, Smitty's Supermarket, and PriceRite Grocery Warehouse.

At the Grand Opening of the new Hawthorne store in 1951.

In 1960, when there were 20 Fred Meyer stores with combined annual sales of $56 million, the company went public.

In 1964, the company acquired Roundup Wholesale Grocery Company of Spokane, Washington, including 14 Sigman supermarkets in Washington and Oregon and three B & B Stores in Montana.

The struggle over the will was further complicated by Pratt's troubles at Fred Meyer S&L. Pratt, a former journalist and talk-show host, was hired by Meyer in 1972.

In 1973, Fred Meyer acquired five Valu-Mart stores in Oregon from Seattle-based Weisfield’s Inc., ending the year with 52 stores and a thriving business in the Pacific Northwest.

In 1975 Fred Meyer bought three Baza'r outlets and nine more department stores from Weisfield's Inc. of Seattle, including two Valu-Mart stores and six Leslie's stores located in Seattle, Spokane, and Yakima, Washington, and Anchorage, Alaska.

In 1976 Fred Meyer retired from the day-to-day affairs of the company and became chairman of the executive committee.

The history of Fred Meyer, Inc. revolves around its founder, Fred G. Meyer, who guided the company until his death in 1978.

When the store opened, it was perfectly located at the intersection of Highway 217 and the Beaverton-Hillsdale highway. (1979)

In May 1980, chairman and CEO Oran B. Robertson fired Pratt and replaced the Fred Meyer S&L board with Fred Meyer executives.

Ultimately KKR successfully negotiated a leveraged buyout in December 1981 with the Fred Meyer management as equity participants for $55 per share, or $435 million.

1982 Foundation Doors Open Fred Meyer Charitable Trust is established with five trustees and about $120 million during a deep recession.

In the fall of 1986, the company issued 6.75 million shares of common stock, 4.5 million new shares and 2.25 million from existing shareholders, at $14.25 per share.

In 1988, under the leadership of newly hired CEO Frederick Stevens, the company began a major overhaul of its stores and management organization.

Fred Meyer also unveiled a new prototype store with a flexible design to facilitate layout changes without expensive remodeling; the first store in the new format opened in 1989.

In 1993 Fred Meyer altered its growth strategy, deciding to concentrate on adding stores in areas where the chain was already strong; in some cases smaller-than-typical Fred Meyer stores were subsequently opened in smaller markets within these areas.

A byproduct of this strategy was the chain’s 1994 exit from the northern California market, into which it had only just begun to expand.

In 1995, the company acquired 22 mall jewelry stores located on the West Coast, then the following year purchased 49 Merksamer Jewelers mall stores spread throughout 11 states.

Smith's reported sales of $2.89 billion for 1996.

Through a 1997 merger, Fred Meyer owns Smith’s Food & Drug Centers Inc., which runs more than 150 full-line supermarkets (which include drug and pharmacy departments) in seven southwestern and mountain states: Utah, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Idaho, Wyoming, and Texas.

Sure enough, in October 1998, The Kroger Co. made a 13.5 billion play for Fred Meyer.

The company and its subsidiaries, including Fred Meyer Jewelers, were purchased by The Kroger Co. in 1999.

2002 New Leadership Charles Rooks retires after two decades.

In March 2003, Fred Meyer began offering its customers Naturally Preferred magazine, which included information and coupons.

2007 Along with the Annie E. Casey Foundation and Heron Foundation, Meyer helps launch a campaign to encourage more mission related investing by foundations.

2008 With Oregon battered by the Great Recession, Meyer focuses on the health of struggling nonprofits, shelving the most ambitious aspects of the redesign.

2010 Meyer becomes the first foundation to meet all of the Foundation Center's Glasspockets transparency criteria.

2013 Meyer begins to focus on equity with full-staff equity training programs.

2014 80% of Oregon We've awarded grants in every one of Oregon's 36 counties and about 80% of cities, communities and unincorporated places in the state.

2015 Pausing to Re-focus Meyer takes a "working hiatus," continuing to engage and invest in efforts aligned with our current priorities while also planning for future programs.

When trustee Travis Cross resigns, John Emrick becomes a Meyer trustee, serving until his own retirement in 2016.

2017 A national search for a new leader launched in summer 2017.

Darleen stepped down from the board in February, 2018.

2019 Alice Cuprill-Comas joins Meyer's board of trustees in July 2019.

2020 Amy C. Tykeson joins Meyer's board of trustees in July 2020, rounding out the number of board members to six.