• Forbes , Tuesday, May 1, 2012 10 AM

Walmart, Target, Kmart and Kohl’s are all celebrating their 50th anniversary this year. Three of the four began as department store offshoots: Target from Minnesota’s Dayton‘s and Kmart from Detroit-based S.S. Kresge. Both were developed as formats to reach shoppers beyond their core businesses. Kohl’s started as a department store when the Wisconsin-based supermarket chain branched out into a new format from the Kohl family. Only Walmart started organically. Sam Walton sold low-cost goods to people well outside the trading areas of most retailers. Kmart grew the fastest, and fell first. In its first three years, it had 150 locations and $1 billion in sales; 271 Kmart stores opened in a single year, 1976. Target, always slow and steady, plodded along. It took the retailer five years to expand beyond its home state of Minnesota with a Target store in Denver.

Walmart’s expansion was solely funded by the Walton family. In 10 years, Walmart had opened just 15 stores, but once the company went public, growth kicked into high gear and in 1975, Forbes named Walmart the top general retailer in the nation, and then awarded it the same title for eight consecutive years. By its 25th anniversary, Walmart operated nearly 2,000 U.S. stores.

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