Marshall Field's
Marshall Field & Company traces its antecedents to a dry goods store opened at 137 Lake Street in Chicago, Illinois in 1852 by Potter Palmer, (1826–1902), eponymously named P. Palmer & Company. In 1856, 21-year-old Marshall Field (1834–1906) moved to the booming midwestern city of Chicago on the southwest shores of Lake Michigan from Pittsfield, Massachusetts and found work at the city's then-largest dry goods firm – Cooley, Wadsworth & Company. Just prior to the American Civil War, in 1860, Field and bookkeeper Levi Z. Leiter, (1834–1904), became junior partners in the firm, then known as Cooley, Farwell & Company. In 1864, the firm, then led by senior partner John V. Farwell, Sr., (1825–1908), was renamed Farwell, Field & Company. only for Field and Leiter to soon withdraw from the partnership with Farwell when presented with the opportunity of a lifetime.
Marshall Field's
The year 1980 saw the rapid acquisition of J.B. Ivey Co., a department store chain with roots in Charlotte, North Carolina and Jacksonville, Florida; The Union Co. in Columbus, Ohio; the Lipman's stores in Portland, Oregon; and several Liberty House stores in Washington state. Field's existing Frederick & Nelson unit in Seattle absorbed the Lipman's and Liberty House stores under its name, but after initially merging The Union of Columbus, Ohio with its earlier Halle's stores from Cleveland, Field's decided to sell the combined chain in November 1981; the new owners quickly liquidated it.