Dillard's

Dillard's, Inc. is an American department store chain founded in 1938 by William T. Dillard. It is headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas, and operates approximately 272 stores in 30 states. Currently, the largest number of stores are located in Texas with 57 and Florida with 42.

Dillard's is the outgrowth of a department store founded in 1938 by William T. Dillard; its corporate headquarters remain located at the eastern edge of Little Rock's Riverdale area and many of its executives and directors are members of the Dillard family. The family retains control of the company through its ownership of Class B Common Stock; the Class A common stock is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Dillard began his first store in Mineral Springs, Arkansas, in what was locally known as "the tater house". It was located across the street from the community's Methodist church. The building that housed the original store was torn down in the early 2000s. Dillard sold the original five and dime store in Nashville, Arkansas, to develop a department store in Texarkana, Arkansas, initially as the minority partner in Wooten & Dillard. In 1956, Dillard led an investment group that acquired the Mayer & Schmidt store in Tyler, Texas. This store eventually took on the name "Dillard's Mayer & Schmidt" until 1974, when it was replaced with a mall-based location south of downtown Tyler.

In 1960, Dillard acquired and turned around the failing Brown-Dunkin store in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The success of this turnaround was followed in late 1963 by acquiring the Joseph Pfeifer store in Little Rock, Arkansas, and in early 1964 acquiring the other main store in Little Rock, Gus Blass Co. Dillard used this as an opportunity to relocate his headquarters to Little Rock. In 1969, Dillard and his investors took Dillard Department Stores, Inc., public on the American Stock Exchange.

The chain then expanded rapidly as an anchor in suburban shopping malls, and took advantage of market conditions to acquire smaller chains and its ability to turn around locations that other companies could not operate profitably. Expansion of the Dillard's chain increased rapidly during the 1970s, mainly through expanding into new malls being built in smaller cities in Texas.

In 1971, five Texas units were acquired from Fedway, a division of Federated Department Stores; the stores were rebranded as Dillard's in 1972. In 1974, five Leonard's stores were acquired in Fort Worth, and a commitment to open a new downtown Fort Worth store at the Tandy Center, the site of the original Leonard's. Also in 1974, the former Brown-Dunkin, Blass, Pfeifer and Mayer & Schmidt stores were fully renamed Dillard's.

In the 1980s, the company purchased many local chains. In 1982, Dillard's leased three units of the defunct Lowenstein's chain in Memphis, Tennessee. In early 1984, Dillard's acquired 12 Stix, Baer & Fuller stores in St. Louis and Kansas City from Associated Dry Goods Corp. In fall 1984, two department store divisions were purchased from Dayton-Hudson Corporation: Diamond's and John A. Brown, with locations in Arizona, Nevada and Oklahoma. Twelve stores in Kansas and Missouri belonging to R. H. Macy & Co.'s Midwest Division, which was later dissolved in 2006, were acquired in early 1986, while the three-unit Hemphill-Wells company in West Texas was purchased in the summer. The stores at Sunset Mall in San Angelo and South Plains Mall in Lubbock were both converted, and the third in downtown Lubbock was closed.

In 1987, Dillard's purchased 26 of Joske's 27 stores in Texas and Arizona and the four-unit Cain-Sloan chain in Nashville, Tennessee, from Allied Stores Corp. This deal gave Dillard's two major anchor locations at several malls in Texas and Arizona with many of the second locations being converted to a separate, expanded home and men's stores, a format that Dillard's utilized greatly, both to grow its store size cost-effectively and to prevent competitors from gaining valuable real estate. Additionally, the Joske's acquisition gave Dillard's entry into the Houston market. That same year, Dillard's co-founded CDI Contractors, a construction company that would help build, remodel, and repair most of its locations, with William "Bill" Clark and Braggs Electric Construction Company.

Dillard's in 1988 acquired the former Selber Bros. clothing department store chain, founded in 1907 in Shreveport, Louisiana, which also had a few locations in Texas.