History of: Kmart, City of Industry CA

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luckysaver
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History of: Kmart, City of Industry CA

Post by luckysaver »

Last week I drove by the old Kmart on Hacienda and Valley in Industry. I was surprised the building was gone - nothing but a Valero gas station and a vacant dirt lot. Here is its history:

According to the City of Industry's website (http://www.cityofindustry.org/picbase/picbase29.html), Kmart built and opened the store on 333 Hacienda in 1962 (there is a picture of the official Chamber of Commerce ribbon ceremony in '62). Somebody mentioned it may have had Kmart Foods grocery store inside the building but it was confirmed that it was entirely a regular Kmart store. On the right side facing Proctor Ave is the auto shop that they sold to Penske and later acquired by the Purrfect chain of auto repair shops. The lot had a rather large parking lot that was never full since shoppers and store staff all parked in the center. The Valero gas station was a recent addition and is not related to Kmart, as they never had a fuel center.

The land that the store was built on is very historical, as it was part of the original plan for a historic park for Workman-Temple before it was subdivided for Kmart, El Encanto, and Allison Transmission. Behind the store is El Encanto, one of the buildings during the Workman-Temple era (now a city-owned Rehab hospital, formerly a disease sanitorium) as well as the Workman-Temple Homestead Museum (city-owned).

Over the years, this store had various types of decor packages, the latest being the "Big Kmart" package. The store size reminded me of the Covina store on Citrus Ave. Inside, there was a KCafe cobranded with Little Caesars Pizza, just like the one in West Covina. The store was doing okay until there were fewer and fewer customers due to competition from Walmart on Gale, which is quite busy on any given weekday.

I think this store closed early last year. I read somewhere that the site may become the LA County Sheriff Detention Center to supplement the nearby Industry station or some sort of support facility for the LA County government.

There were some bad omens in its history:
- In 1969, there was an armed robbery where the gunman escaped with $30000 from the registers. This was probably the most serious crime to happen at this location.
- In 1999, a 67-year old La Puente man was found dead, apparently from a murder.
- In 2000, someone tried to kidnap a 7 year old girl at this store.

luckysaver
Dean
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Re: History of: Kmart, City of Industry CA

Post by Dean »

This site was discussed within another thread:

http://www.groceteria.com/board/viewtop ... y&start=60

The parking lot was HUGE. You could land an airplane or two!

I can still see the genie of Baza'r on the building. (See pix on above thread...thanks to The Chadmeister!)

I still have an old black & white TV my dad purchased for me there! Comically, my folks gave it "back" to me recently (I left it with them when I moved out years ago--Dad used it in the garage). They also gave me one of the digital converters to use with it!
Dean
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Re: History of: Kmart, City of Industry CA

Post by Dean »

Check out this commercial...and sing-along!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDKVLyRt0jQ

Site is VERY similar to this former C of I location.

Note the appliances shown...did they always have 'em? Brought back with Sears' acquisition?
luckysaver
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Re: History of: Kmart, City of Industry CA

Post by luckysaver »

Kmart always sold small kitchen appliances like toasters, mixers, etc. Larger appliances such as washers/dryers, refrigerators, ovens came about with the Sears acquisition of Kmart. As you may all know, Kenmore is the house brand. Many K's remodeled a section of their store and call the appliance area the "Sears Appliance Center", such as the Covina store on Citrus. I call it "mini Sears". Others like Diamond Bar have very limited supply because they are not outfitted with a full appliance department.

West Covina's Kmart has "2" appliance departments - mini Sears inside plus the Sears Outlet next door. If you count the Westfield Sears location (the former Clifton Greenery Cafeteria), that makes it 3 appliance departments operated by Sears.

City of Industry closed before Kmart started selling large appliances and never added a mini-Sears.

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terryinokc
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Re: History of: Kmart, City of Industry CA

Post by terryinokc »

K Mart stores in the southern part of the country had major appliance departments in the 60's and 70's.....my aunt and uncle bought a washer and dryer at one in Augusta Georgia sometime in 1968 or 1969.
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Brian Lutz
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Re: History of: Kmart, City of Industry CA

Post by Brian Lutz »

terryinokc wrote:K Mart stores in the southern part of the country had major appliance departments in the 60's and 70's.....my aunt and uncle bought a washer and dryer at one in Augusta Georgia sometime in 1968 or 1969.
This late 1970s KMart commercial on YouTube shows refrigerators in the store:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDKVLyRt0jQ
The Sledgehammer - Version 2.0 - Seattle Area Malls, Retail History, and other random things.
rich
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Re: History of: Kmart, City of Industry CA

Post by rich »

They made much of carrying name brand major appliances in the late 60s/early 70s. I think those departments were gone by the mid-70s. They dropped them around the same time that full-line department stores quit selling them.
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Re: History of: Kmart, City of Industry CA

Post by TenPoundHammer »

luckysaver wrote:Kmart built and opened the store on 333 Hacienda in 1962 (there is a picture of the official Chamber of Commerce ribbon ceremony in '62).
Wow. Their first year in business and they'd already made it out to California?
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Re: History of: Kmart, City of Industry CA

Post by wnetmacman »

Wow. Their first year in business and they'd already made it out to California?
You have to keep in mind that while the first Kmart opened in 1962, S.S. Kresge was already a nationwide company with their dime store operation. This was heralded as one of the main reasons why Kmart was able to spread so quickly was that they had a distribution network already in place. The first 100 or so Kmarts opened within 3-4 years of Garden City. The funny part is that in some areas, the original stores are the ones still open.
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TenPoundHammer
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Re: History of: Kmart, City of Industry CA

Post by TenPoundHammer »

wnetmacman wrote:
Wow. Their first year in business and they'd already made it out to California?
You have to keep in mind that while the first Kmart opened in 1962, S.S. Kresge was already a nationwide company with their dime store operation. This was heralded as one of the main reasons why Kmart was able to spread so quickly was that they had a distribution network already in place. The first 100 or so Kmarts opened within 3-4 years of Garden City. The funny part is that in some areas, the original stores are the ones still open.
It just seems strange though that, despite the establishment of the Kresge name, Kmart was still a fairly new concept. I don't think Woolco, Target, Wal-Mart, etc. skipped around as much as Kmart did. (For instance, even though we're only two states over from their home base of Minnesota, I don't think Michigan had any Target stores until the mid-80s.)
wnetmacman
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Re: History of: Kmart, City of Industry CA

Post by wnetmacman »

Acutally, Woolco and Target were worse.

Target opened stores near their home base in Minnesota, then skipped all the way to Dallas and Houston with just a few stores. Woolco did much of the same as Kmart, since they had their own established distribution network as well. Woolco was much more careful of their expansion, and when they saw that it wasn't working, they started pulling back, and toward the end, they folded the entire Woolco division into the dime store division. As several books I've read have told the story, the Woolworth board didn't like not making the individual profit on each item, as opposed to the larger profits off selling four times as much.
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Re: History of: Kmart, City of Industry CA

Post by runchadrun »

TenPoundHammer wrote:Wow. Their first year in business and they'd already made it out to California?
Actually, the first prototype Kmart was in a former Kresge at the corner of Laurel Canyon and Rinaldi in San Fernando, CA. It's now a Didi's Discounts.
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RandallFlagg
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Re: History of: Kmart, City of Industry CA

Post by RandallFlagg »

luckysaver wrote:Kmart always sold small kitchen appliances like toasters, mixers, etc. Larger appliances such as washers/dryers, refrigerators, ovens came about with the Sears acquisition of Kmart. As you may all know, Kenmore is the house brand. Many K's remodeled a section of their store and call the appliance area the "Sears Appliance Center", such as the Covina store on Citrus. I call it "mini Sears". Others like Diamond Bar have very limited supply because they are not outfitted with a full appliance department.

West Covina's Kmart has "2" appliance departments - mini Sears inside plus the Sears Outlet next door. If you count the Westfield Sears location (the former Clifton Greenery Cafeteria), that makes it 3 appliance departments operated by Sears.

City of Industry closed before Kmart started selling large appliances and never added a mini-Sears.

luckysaver
I'm not sure after 1988, but from 1985 to 88 I was an area manager for Kmart. I oversaw Garden, Building Materials, Lumber, Housewares and Pet supplies. In between my areas was Appliances that not only included the small appliances department, but major appliances. They were two different departments. Majors included records and tapes, televisions, stereos, refrigerators, stoves, washers and dryers. At the time it was the store managers discretion in our areas whether to stock Whirlpool or GE. Usually the reps would try to woo the managers to stock their product. I remember working one overnighter with my building materials dept. head and we each were pushing about 10 shopping carts. I went across the front end registers and back and he went down the main aisle and turned. We met head on at a Whirlpool frig, knocking it over and popped both door off. The store manager just shook his head and told us we better fix it like new. We got the doors back on and had to order trim from the vendor. Good times. Added: We only carried about 8-10 refrigerators, a couple of stoves and maybe 3 pairs of washers and dryers. It was basically 3 short rows of appliances.
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