Arlans Department Stores

[retailisking]

This was one of the first discount retailers, founded in New Bedford, MA in 1948. It would eventually grow to 119 stores from Maine to Colorado before contracting and eventually going bankrupt (1973) in the killing fields of stagflation that claimed lots of discount chains in the 70s.

My first discount store experience was with this chain. They operated a two-level store (ground level/basement) in the Portland (ME) Shopping Center (now Union Station Plaza, named after the defunct train station that was demolished in 1961 to make way for its development.) This site has a few print ads and lots of comments with memories of the chain.

http://mallsofamerica.blogspot.com/2005/10/arlans-department-store-ads.html

Here's an article about the Ames, Iowa store that lasted six years (1965-1971) before they sold this and 15 other locations in the midwest to Target. As an aside, note that the store didn't open until noon on weekdays! No blue laws in Iowa, either...

http://www.ameshistory.org/tribunearchives/arlans-department-store-opens
For the 1973 Christmas shopping season they attempted a go-for-broke "hip" makeover known internally as "Mission Impossible", including this truly bizarre logo:



Their bankruptcy case, which dragged on for years, reads like a depressingly familiar story about a regional chain that had national ambitions and literally buried itself in debt.

http://openjurist.org/615/f2d/925/in-the-matter-of-arlans-department-stores-inc