True Value history

By 1956 the company was selling more than $1 million worth of merchandise a month.

In 1959 Cotter moved into its longtime headquarters, a 200,000-square-foot warehouse and office on the northwest side of Chicago.

John Cotter had been busy acquiring and raiding smaller rivals in the Midwest as well as outside the region, and Cotter & Company had surpassed Hibbard's in sales volume in 1960.

In 1961, he secretly indicated that he was interested in buying Hibbard's assets.

In 1962 the company opened its first regional distribution center in Cleveland, Ohio.

In 1963, Cotter spent $2.5 million to acquire the hardware operations and “True Value” trademark of the venerable Chicago hardware company Hibbard, Spencer & Bartlett.

In 1965, the company, with 450 members and sales of around $18 million, began to expand through a series of acquisitions.

In 1966 Cotter broke the $100 million mark in total shipments.

In 1967 the company bought the General Paint & Chemical Company and began to market its own paint and related products under the Tru-Test name.

By 1970 the company was shipping more than $1 million worth of goods each business day.

In 1977, the company instituted its ServiStar advertising program, planning to create a voluntary chain of owner-dealers.

In 1978 John Cotter assumed the post of chairman of the board, and his son, Dan, took over the presidency.

By then, the company had more than 5,000 members, and in 1979 it broke the $1 billion level for annual sales.

As American president Larry Zehfuss explained in an article in the October 1983 issues of Chilton's Hardware Age, "We'd go in, sign the store, show the dealer how the program worked, and tell him to call us if he had any problems."

In 1987, the company had sales of $1.1 billion, and nearly 4,000 hardware, lumber, rental, and home and garden centers across the country.

In 1988, in recognition of the growing diversity of its business, American changed its corporate name to ServiStar Corporation.

John M. Cotter died in 1989, at age 85, having built Cotter & Company into a $2.1 billion company with over 8,000 members.

In July 1990, ServiStar merged with Denver-based Coast to Coast to form a $1.8 billion international co-op.

In 1994, Cotter established True Value International, an independently operated division based in Georgia, to serve stores outside the United States.

Frieswick, Kris, "Of Mergers and Margins: How the True Value/ ServiStar Merger Will Impact the Hardware Manufacturing World," Manufacturing Marketplace , December 1996.

In January 1997, the two presidents addressed the companies' conventions, and beginning in February more than 6,000 retailers attended a series of over 500 town hall meetings across the country to answer questions and address concerns.

During a 1999 audit, accounting irregularities topping out at $100 million were discovered, leading to a $131 million loss that year.

In the spring of 2001, the co-op defaulted on a $200 million loan and was struggling under a $540 million debt load.