Younkers history

Herman Younker, a younger half-brother to the three founders, opened a dry goods store in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1874.

With the closing of the Keokuk store in 1879, Des Moines became headq uarters for Younker Brothers.

In 1880, Herman caused quite a stir by hiring the first female sales associate.

1881: The company is the first Des Moines store to hire female sales clerks.

The future novelist and newspaper editor Eleanor Hoyt Brainerd worked as a clerk at the Younkers store in Des Moines in 1889.

Younkers incorporated in 1904, which helped expansion of the flagship store.

The department store in downtown Des Moines was purchased in 1912.

The downtown Des Moines store became known for its Tea Room restaurant, which opened in 1913 and closed shortly before the store did.

1927: Younker Brothers merges with Harris-Emery Co.

It updated its "Satisfaction Always" motto, adop ted in 1936, to stress customer service even more than previously.

It also installed Iowa's first escalator, known as the "electric stairs," in 1939.

Yo unker Brothers went public in December 1948 to retire bank loans, off ering a minority of its common stock at $26 a share.

The Omaha store, opened in 1955, was its first in a shopping center.

In 1961 the company acquired Kilpa trick's Department Store of Omaha.

Although the biggest downtown department store in Des Moines, the You nkers flagship retained a reputation for "small town friendliness." T his six-story, 400,000-square-foot, block-long building was responsib le for 42 percent of corporation sales in fiscal 1965.

Net sales (including leased departments) reached a record $83.5 million in fiscal 1970, and net profit was a recor d $3.8 million.

In 1974, it was announced that Younkers would be arriving in Sioux Falls.

The 106,000-square-foot anchor store was to open in the new Empire Mall in late 1975.

By 1978 Younkers had added branch stores in Des Moines and Davenport, Iowa; Moline, Illinois; and Sioux Falls, South Dakota, plus a main s tore in a Cedar Rapids shopping center and the Merle Hay Mall in Des Moines, which had a separate store for homes.

The company had been Iowa-based since the beginning, and when the company was bought in 1979 by Equitable of Iowa, a sigh of relief was felt.

Fred Hubbell became chairman of Younkers in 1985.

Net income improved appreciably in 1986, and at the end of the year Y ounkers agreed to purchase a major competitor, Brandeis & Sons, w hich was operating 11 department stores in Iowa and Nebraska.

Under Equitable's ownership, Younkers acquired all 11 locations of the Omaha-based Brandeis department store chain in 1987.

In June 1989 Equitable announced its intention to sell Younkers but r ejected offers of about $90 million as inadequate.

Sales grew slo wly in subsequent years, but after the company earned a record $1 2.8 million on sales of $330 million in 1991, almost all of the c ommon stock was put on the market at $12.50 a share.

After returning to public ownership on the NASDAQ on April 22, 1992, Younkers purchased the 22 stores of the H.C. Prange chain in Wisconsin and Michigan.

Prange proved harder to digest than expe cted, however, and although Younkers' sales rose to $597.9 millio n in fiscal 1993, net earnings fell to $12.2 million and, on an e arnings-per-share basis, only half the previous year's level.

During fiscal 1994 sales and earnings barely rose.

After a hostile takeover bid by Carson Pirie Scott was rejected in 1995, Younkers' shareholders agreed to a friendly merger by Proffitt's, Inc., of Knoxville, Tennessee.

The merger was completed in December 1996.

Younkers, Inc. is a Midwestern department store chain with, by early 1997, 48 stores in seven states.

New Younkers units were scheduled to open, however , in Iowa City, Iowa, and Grandville, Michigan, in 1998.

In 1999, the company set plans in motion to open a store in Muskegon, Michigan.

"Two Younkers Are Better Than One," Birmingham Business Journal, September 26, 2002.

In 2003, Saks closed Younkers' headquarters in Des Moines and merged its operations with those of Carson Pirie Scott in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Bon-Ton Stores Inc. swooped in with a $1.1 billion offer in October 2005.

Saks sold Younkers and its other Northern Department Store Group stores (Carson Pirie Scott, Bergner's, Boston Store, and Herberger's) to Bon-Ton Stores in a $1.1 billion deal that was completed on March 6, 2006.

In the early hours of March 29, 2014, a fire ravaged the former Younker Brothers Department Store in downtown Des Moines while it was under renovation.

Des Moines writer Vicki Ingham has captured the grandeur of bygone retailing in a new book, “Younkers: The Friendly Store” (The History Press, 2016; $21.99).

On January 31, 2018, Bon-Ton announced that they were going to close 42 locations nationwide including 9 in the state of Wisconsin between February and April 2018.

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