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 store burned to the ground. However, as a result of the employees' herculean efforts, so much merchandise was saved that the store was able to reopen in only a few weeks (the Wholesale Department on Oct. 28th, and the Retail Department on Nov. 6th) in a temporary location (a horse-streetcar barn of the Chicago City Railway Co. at State & 20th Streets). Six months later, in April 1872, Field & Leiter reopened in an unburned building at Madison and Market Streets (today's West Wacker Drive). Salesman Parker stayed on with the Company for 45 more years, rising to the level of General Sales Manager.