3680. Target Stores Mascot 2005

Target Corporation, doing business as Target, is an American retailing company headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the second-largest discount retailer in the United States, behind Walmart. The company is ranked at number 33 on the Fortune 500 as of 2010 and is a component of the Standard & Poor's 500 index. Its bullseye trademark is licensed to Wesfarmers, owners of the separate Target Australia chain.
The company was founded in 1902 as the Dayton Dry Goods Company, though its first Target store was opened in 1962 in nearby Roseville, Minnesota. Target grew and eventually became the largest division of Dayton Hudson Corporation, culminating in the company being renamed as Target Corporation in August 2000. On January 13, 2011, Target announced its expansion into Canada. Target will operate 100 to 150 stores in Canada by 2013, through its purchase of leaseholds from the Canadian chain Zellers.

While working for the Dayton company, John F. Geisse developed the concept of upscale discount retailing, and became the founder of Target from concept to large discount chain. On May 1, 1962 the Dayton Company, using Geisse's concepts, opened its first Target discount store located at 1515 West County Road B in the Saint Paul suburb of Roseville, Minnesota. The name "Target" originated from Dayton's publicity director, Stewart K. Widdess, and was intended to prevent consumers from associating the new discount store chain with the department store. The new subsidiary, Target Stores, ended its first year with four units, all in Minnesota. Target Stores lost money in its initial years, but reported its first gain in 1965, with sales reaching $39 million, allowing a fifth store to open in Minneapolis. Bruce Dayton launched the B. Dalton Bookseller specialty chain in 1966, which became the largest hardcover bookseller in the United States. The bookseller chain was named after the founder, but with the y in Dayton replaced with an l. Target Stores expanded outside of Minneapolis by opening two stores in Denver, Colorado and sales exceeded $60 million. In 1967, the Dayton Corporation was established and it went public with its first offering of common stock, and it opened two more Target stores in Minnesota resulting in a total of nine units.

This SuperTarget in Roseville, Minnesota sits on the site of the first Target store, which opened in 1962 and was torn down and replaced by this much larger store in 2005.
In 1968, Target changed its bullseye logo to a more modern look, and expanded into St. Louis, Missouri, with two new stores. That year, Target Stores experienced a transition phase: Target's president, Douglas J. Dayton, went back to the parent Dayton Corporation and was succeeded by William A. Hodder, and senior vice president and founder John F. Geisse left the company. He was later hired by St. Louis-based May Department Stores, where he founded the Venture Stores chain. Target Stores ended the year with 11 units and $130 million in sales. In 1969, it acquired the Lechmere electronics and appliances chain that operated in New England, and expanded Target Stores into Texas and Oklahoma with six new units and its first distribution center in Fridley, Minnesota. The Dayton Company also merged with the Detroit-based J.L. Hudson company that year, to become the Dayton-Hudson Corporation consisting of Target and five major department store chains: Dayton's, Diamond's of Phoenix, Arizona, Hudson's, John A. Brown of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and Lipmans. In 1970, Target Stores added seven new units, including two units in Wisconsin, and the 24-unit chain reached $200 million in sales. That year, Dayton-Hudson also acquired the Team Electronics specialty chain that was headed by Stephen L. Pistner.