Here he hosts a picnic for GIs on leave. After the War, Portland continued to grow. The postwar boom led to a rapid and dramatic expansion of the Fred Meyer brand. Families began moving into the rapidly developing suburbs and Fred Meyer stores soon followed.
In the suburbs where land was plentiful and cheap, the stores grew into supercenters, sprawling department stores, which had groceries, but also hosted a wide variety of goods from automotive parts and garden supplies to apparel and jewelry. Fred Meyer seemed to have a knack for predicting where the next big area of development in the Portland area would be. He would often buy a parcel of land cheaply before the area was populated. Then once houses and other business moved in, he would build his supercenter in the midst of bustling commercial center.
By the mid-sixties, Fred Meyer had his sights set beyond the Portland area. The company first purchased the Markettime chain in Seattle, Washington and then began acquiring many other smaller chains around the Pacific Northwest. By the end of the sixties, they had over 40 stores in 4 states. At the Grand Opening of the new Hawthorne store in Fred Meyer would open many new stores over the next few decades and they were always big events — and always involved big cakes! The Grand Opening of the Interstate store in Eva Meyer looks approvingly at the grand cake.
Another big opening and another big cake. Fred Meyer understood that car culture meant that ample parking was a must. Hollywood store, circa This new, high tech microwave oven was the first installation of its kind in the Western U. Radio personality, Peter Mudie, celebrates the Fred Meyer Cheese Festival by climbing atop the world's largest cheese, Fred Meyer enjoys a small bite of the world's largest cheese with the Clark County Dairy Princess at the grand opening of the Hazel Dell store in This photo spread shows the growth of the kinds of products now being produced by Fred Meyer, Inc.
By the early s they were making everything from chocolates to vitamins. This map from shows the growing expansion of Fred Meyer stores throughout the Pacific Northwest. Moving into the s, Fred Meyer stores added more and more departments, including music and electronics.
Meyer, circa at about 90 years old. Fred continued to work at the company until shortly before his death in at the age of Fred Meyer loved the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest. He and his wife Eva had a home in Wemme, Oregon on Mt.
Hood which they called "Eve's Eden. In these clips, you'll see: Fred Meyer and his groundskeeper, Jack Fisher, fell a huge tree on the property; Fred and Eva Meyer playing on a giant seesaw at nearby Camp Arrah Wanna; Fred and Eva riding a tandem bicycle together ; and Fred washing dishes at their outdoor kitchen where he's joined first by his stepson, Earle A.
Chiles and then by Eva. After Eva's death in , Fred Meyer preferred to stay in Portland. His business empire grew exponentially in the years following and he would later say, "After the Missus passed on, I had nothing better to do.
I enjoyed life with her and without her there wasn't much to do so I opened more stores. He discusses current events, the development of his business and his personal philosophies. Meyer passed away in , but his store and his legacy lives on.
The company continued its expansion, acquiring more small grocery chains throughout the West. The kinds of goods sold at the stores continued to expand as well and new stores included electronics departments, home improvement sections and exercise equipment. By the mid-nineties, Fred Meyer's stores merged with another national chain, Kroger, Inc.
The Fred Meyer name is still used for the stores in the Pacific Northwest. In fact, there are now over stores with the Fred Meyer name. And to think, it all started with a man delivering coffee on horseback! One of the first stores to open after the death of Fred Meyer, the Beaverton location was the largest and most ambitious store to date. The site was a testament to Fred G. Meyer's prescience in the real estate market: he had bought this land decades earlier when there was little development anywhere nearby.
When the store opened, it was perfectly located at the intersection of Highway and the Beaverton-Hillsdale highway. As seen on the cover of the Fred Meyer employee newsletter, huge crowds gathered at the grand opening of the Beaverton store not only to see the state-of-the-art new facility, but also to catch a glimpse of Farrah Fawcett who hosted the celebration.
The Fred Meyer apparel departments continued to keep up with the latest fashions. This is a display from around at the Hawthorne store. The departments in Fred Meyer stores began to change and expand, too. Every new Fred Meyer store had a stand-alone jewelry store. The Fred Meyer electronics departments evolved with the advent of personal computers. Here a girl is seen testing out a Commodore 64 computer, circa Fred Meyer continued to expand its production facilities as well as its stores.
Here, a baker oversees an automated doughnut machine. The fitness craze of the s also made its way to Fred Meyer stores.
Here a store employee demonstrates how to use the exercise equipment available for sale. Fred Meyer stores had become so much a part of life in Oregon that this couple decided to wed in the Eugene store where they met. A new mascot, Fred Bear, was introduced in the s and would make frequent appearances at the stores to promote events and openings.
The company continued to expand into more cities and states. One of the biggest leaps was to Alaska where they opened several stores in the 80s and 90s that are still in operation today. At the grand opening of the Wasilla, Alaska store in then-mayor Sarah Palin gets the honor of the cutting the cake with the traditional grand opening knife.
Tiled aisles and carpeted apparel departments replaced concrete floors. Displays were made more colorful, and new marketing ideas were introduced throughout the store. Fred Meyer also continued to develop a vertical management organization. The heads of each of up to 11 departments per store would eventually report to corporate vice-presidents in charge of those departments rather than to an individual store manager.
Individual departments became as strong as specialty stores and operated as such, complete with their own checkouts. Although business was booming, not every venture went as planned. In , Fred Meyer sold the Market Basket stores it had bought three years earlier, as the small stores did not fit in with other operations. Nevertheless, sales and income continued to grow. Meyer, by now in his early 80s, continued to rule the company.
A younger management team was beginning to take at least some of the reins of power, however. Crocker's presidency coincided with Fred Meyer's opening of its Levi jeans centers. While profits continued to increase, the early s were a difficult time for Fred Meyer's management. In , Meyer suffered a stroke that left him weakened but still alert. In November of the same year, Crocker tendered his resignation, effective January 1, Green to replace Crocker as president and Oran W.
Robertson as first vice-president of the company. The new management team continued relentless expansion. The main focus was on additions to existing stores, but plans also called for three new stores in and one in Acquisitions were also part of the plan. Although many in the banking industry were skeptical, Fred Meyer Savings and Loan Association grew rapidly, bringing in small depositors who probably had not saved at all before opening their Fred Meyer accounts.
The company drew on its retailing experience to build the bank, offering free loaves of bread and steaks for customers opening accounts. The Fred Meyer Savings and Loans also stayed open longer hours than their competitors. In , Fred Meyer bought three Baza'r outlets and nine more department stores from Weisfield's Inc. All were to be merged into Fred Meyer operations. In , Fred Meyer retired from the day-to-day affairs of the company and became chairman of the executive committee.
Oran B. Robertson was named chairman of the board and chief executive officer. Cyril K. Green remained president, and Virgil Campbell became executive vice-president.
In , Meyer died. The success of Fred Meyer, Inc. His stores dominated the Northwest and continued to expand. Their net profit margin of 1. Meyer's death inspired many testimonials, but it also set the stage for a power struggle among the four executors of his will; Meyer owned On one side was Oran B. Robertson, chairman and CEO. Opposing him was G. Other executors included a Fred Meyer vice-president and Warne H. Nunn, Pratt's friend and longtime local power company executive.
Pratt, a former journalist and talk-show host, was hired by Meyer in The savings and loan's loss ended nearly 20 years of quarterly profit increases.
Pratt responded with a lawsuit that was later settled. Fred Meyer sold its savings and loan. With the death of Meyer, outside investors began showing an interest in the company. This took Fred Meyer stock out of circulation and made the company private once again.
The leveraged buyout split Fred Meyer into two companies. The retail operations continued as Fred Meyer, Inc. Occupancy expenses rose dramatically due to the spinoff of real estate holdings, and initially the company operated in the red.
Despite higher occupancy expenses and the cost of debt normally associated with leveraged buyouts, Fred Meyer continued to expand aggressively. Over the next five years, it built 11 new stores and acquired the Grand Central chain, which had stores in several Rocky Mountain states.
Furthermore, it cut costs by consolidating departmental checkouts. Overall, during the time the company was private, Fred Meyer grew from 64 to 93 stores. Management attempted and failed to bring Fred Meyer public again in By , management felt investors were ready to buy Fred Meyer stock.
In the fall of , the company issued 6. Through the late s, Fred Meyer continued its expansion, adding several new stores yearly as well as replacing and expanding existing stores. The Pacific Northwest had become a more competitive market with the entrance of discounters--such as Dayton Hudson's Target stores and the grocery chains Food 4 Less and Cub Foods--but most analysts believed Fred Meyer's one-stop shopping centers gave it a unique niche in the market.
In , under the leadership of newly hired CEO Frederick Stevens, the company began a major overhaul of its stores and management organization. Fred Meyer also unveiled a new prototype store with a flexible design to facilitate layout changes without expensive remodeling; the first store in the new format opened in In and , the company opened eight large new stores, closed ten small stores, and remodeled several other stores.
Miller took over the CEO spot, after most recently serving as executive vice-president of retail operations for the Albertson's supermarket chain. As the s progressed, Fred Meyer continued to fine-tune its store formats and locations in order to fend off increasing competition that cut into sales and earnings.
The rise of category-killers was particularly troubling, especially in the areas of hardware and home electronics. In response, Fred Meyer reduced the amount of space devoted to lumber and building materials and began to phase out computer hardware.
In , Fred Meyer altered its growth strategy, deciding to concentrate on adding stores in areas where the chain was already strong; in some cases smaller-than-typical Fred Meyer stores were subsequently opened in smaller markets within these areas.
A byproduct of this strategy was the chain's exit from the northern California market, into which it had only just begun to expand. Results for were also affected by an day strike which centered on the number of part-time employees at the company. Sales increased at a more healthy rate in fiscal and , buoyed by a surge in sales in Fred Meyer's nonfood departments. The mids saw the company make its most dramatic moves outside the realm of one-stop shopping supercenters.
Fred Meyer had entered the fine jewelry business in Over the next two decades, it had built up a chain of about three dozen Fred Meyer Jewelers standalone stores, which were located within malls, and it had also included Fred Meyer Jewelers departments in nearly of its supercenters.
In , the company acquired 22 mall jewelry stores located on the West Coast, then the following year purchased 49 Merksamer Jewelers mall stores spread throughout 11 states.
With the addition of Fox Jewelry, which had been founded in with a store in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Fred Meyer became the fourth-largest fine jewelry chain in the country. An even larger acquisition the summer of brought Fred Meyer an enhanced presence in food retailing. Founded in and headquartered in Salt Lake City, Smith's large stores combined full-line supermarkets with drug and pharmacy departments and operated under the names Smith's, Smitty's Supermarket, and PriceRite Grocery Warehouse.
Fred Meyer's growth continued in QFC was added to the company's arsenal. QFC operated 89 supermarkets in the Seattle area and had been expanding by making strategic acquisitions over the past several years, much like Fred Meyer.
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