AKA Treasures Discount Store

Treasure Island or the Treasury in some states was a chain of discount department stores that opened in 1961 and closed in 2008. If you haven't already please hit that subscribe button and notifications else you get notified of my latest videos. Please hit that You might see that in a future video. Why come to Treasure Island to the best outdoor furniture? For one thing we guarantee value. We simply will not be under sold. Compare our beautiful quality selection, the world's finest brand name, exquisite fabric, patterns, textures, vibrant and subtle colors, infinite possibilities and best of all we guarantee your satisfaction for as long as you own the furniture. To turn your backyard into a vacation paradise, come to Treasure Island. It's the most unusual store. The very first Treasure Island location opened in November of 1961 in Appleton, Wisconsin. The real history behind this chain though started in the 1930s. Founded in the 1930s, General Merchandise Company of the Milwaukee Wisconsin dealt in General Merchandise from their home on Milwaukee's famous Water Street. It was founded by David Kritzik and his sons Robert and Stanley. Mail order was their bread and butter and by 1939 they issued a catalog of 96 pages containing charms, games, holiday decorations, notions and novelties. After World War II, General Merchandise expanded rapidly. By 1948 the wholesale catalog was 148 pages and the firm was expanding every year. It was one of the first to go to automated warehousing. As early as 1948, the company was utilizing the earliest IBM 1410 computer which helped process a whopping 400 orders in 15 minutes. By 1960 the firm was doing 40 million dollars in catalog mail orders. I You put a dime in them you gotta let the whole song play out. Wait I'm getting there. Their automated cons In 1962 JC Penney's purchased the General Merchandise company outright for 11 million dollars rebounding the discord chain of stores as the Treasury. Soon there were Treasury stores across the South. The General Merchandise company had founded the Treasure Island discount store chain as a division of General Merchandise in 1961. The original stores were named Treasure Island but because of trademark and copyright conflicts some of the stores that were subsequently opened were called the Treasury. The only exceptions in this case were around Milwaukee and Appleton, Wisconsin and Atlanta, Georgia where they retain the Treasure Island name. Eventually the Treasury had locations in most southern US states California and the Milwaukee area. Some stores also sold food and fuel The roof architecture of the Treasury and the Treasure Island stores were unique having a zigzag pattern that was very prominent both inside and outside. This is reflected in the store logo. For those of you who remember they offered groceries, cons The stores were 200,000 square feet, 60,000 square feet larger than the average Costco and the four Metro Atlanta locations employed 1,900 people. Treasure Island moved into the Atlanta market from Wisconsin with its four brand new stores in 1968. Advertised as a discount store, Treasure Island emphasized total savings and convenience especially for young families. Before the whole discount store concept, groceries were purchased at smaller markets that only sold food and essential items. Houseware and clothing for example were usually purchased at a department store or small specialty shops. Discount stores offered everything under one very large roof at competitive prices. Since Treasure Island and the Treasury were under the JCPenney division, shoppers were able to charge goods to their JCPenney charge card. Within the next decade, gas shortages and discount store competition from The enormous overhead of the stores also contributed to their decline. In 1979, a struggling Treasure Island leased some of its square footage to a new DIY concept, the new home improvement stores. The Home Depot debuted at Treasure Island's Memorial Drive in Buford Highway locations. Home Depot eventually moved into two other locations in Georgia. The recessions of the 1970s and early 1980s were too much to bear for JCPenney and the discount division started losing money. The Treasury stores were eventually closed by 1982. The company also branched out into drug stores located in many southern states known as Treasury Drug. Treasury drugs was somewhat more successful than Treasure Island but less successful than other drug chains. Early in 1993, Big B acquired 45 Treasury stores from JCPenney companies Thrift Drug Inc. paying $16. 5 million for the Atlanta-based stores. JCPenney and Eckerd agreed to merge in 1996 and the merger took place in 1997. Pennies paid $3. 3 billion and ass Treasury drug stores soon found themselves blended with Eckerd drugs as part of the continuing blending of Eckerd into JCPenney company. JCPenney sold the Eckerd chain to CVS in the Jean Couture Group of Canada in 2004. CVS got roughly 1200 Eckerd stores in the southern United States while Jean Couture Group got approximately 1500 Eckerd stores in the northeastern United States. In 2007, all the remaining Eckerd stores were sold, subrided and rebranded. So ended the Treasury and Treasure Island's namesake.