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.
Battlefield Mall
Melvin Simon & Associates, now known as Simon Property Group, built and developed Battlefield Mall. Their plans had begun in 1963 with a proposed Montgomery Ward department store. By 1968, J. C. Penney and Dillard's had also been confirmed as the second and third anchor stores. After two years of construction, it opened to the public on July 23, 1970. On opening day, the mall was 93 percent occupied, consisting of of shop space along with the three department stores. Among the tenants of the mall at the time were a McCrory dime store, Piccadilly Restaurants, and Osco Drug. After only five years in operation, the McCrory store was closed and converted to local department store Heer's, which opened there in 1975.