Skaggs Companies
 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification.(May 2013) |
| Industry | Retail |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1915 |
| Defunct | 1979 |
| Successor | American Stores |
Area served | United States |
| Products | Food, Prescriptions, Liquor |
| Subsidiaries | Skaggs Drug Centers Payless Drugs Osco Drug |
Skaggs Companieswas the predecessor to many famousUnited Statesretailingchains,includingSafeway,Albertsons,Osco Drug,andLongs Drugs.The company owned several drugstore chains, but all of them were sold. Skaggs Cos. becameAmerican Storesin 1979.
History
[edit]Safeway
[edit]The first company was based inAmerican Falls, Idaho,where in 1915Samuel M. Skaggsfounded a grocery store and operated it asSkaggs' Cash Store,which was sold to his sonMarion Barton Skaggs.It took the name "Cash Store" as it operated on only a cash basis. With the assistance of his five brothers:Pepper Oscar Skaggs,Aron Sylvester Skaggs,Loronzo L. Skaggs,Samuel Olnie Skaggs,Levi Justin Skaggs,Marion Skaggs grew the chain, operated as two separate businesses,Skaggs Cash Stores(Pepper Oscar Skaggs) andSkaggs United Stores(M. B. Skaggs), to 191 stores by 1920.
In 1921, Marion Barton Skaggs moved toPortland, Oregon,purchased a home in theAlameda neighborhoodand established four groceries in town, in part by buying the Freeman grocer and the Java Coffee Company.[1][2][3]
By 1926 it had grown to 673 stores, when it merged withSam Seelig Company(in a deal orchestrated byCharles MerrillofMerrill Lynchto form Safeway). Safeway later acquiredPay and Take It StoresfromLoronzo L. Skaggsin 1928.[4]Safeway is considered the main successor to Skaggs, and despite the Skaggs Companies later being bought by Albertsons, Safeway was also acquired by Albertsons, thus bringing the Skaggs history full-circle.
Payless Drugs
[edit]In 1932 L.J. Skaggs openedPayless Drug StoresinTacoma, Washington,which soon expanded across the western United States. Some stores were sold to his brother Samuel "L.S." Olnie Skaggs (then an executive at Safeway) along with some colleagues. L.J. Skaggs retained California Pay Less Stores, which became part ofThrifty PayLess,and which are now owned byRite Aid.The remaining Pay-Less stores were renamed Skaggs Drug Stores in 1948, Skaggs Drug Centers in 1965. In 1969Albertsonssupermarkets and Skaggs Drugs partnered to create combination food and drug stores, a partnership that dissolved in 1977, with assets divided.
Payless of Tacomawould exist in Pierce, Thurston and Kitsap counties as a separate company fromPayless/House of Valueswhich was formed in 1973 after Seattle basedGov Mart/Ba'zarandHouse of Valueswere merged. To separate the two companies (and confusion), the stores remained under theHouse of Valuesname before being rebranded asValue Giant.Once Payless of Tacoma declared bankruptcy in 1991, the company was merged with the existingPaylessstores from the other company and theValue Giantname was removed for the existing stores.
Early photos of a Payless Drug Store under the ownership of L.J. Skaggs are currently on display at theAlbany Regional MuseuminAlbany, Oregon.The downtown location at 2nd and Broadalbin Streets was later relocated to Santiam Highway during the 1960s.
Osco Drug
[edit]Osco Drugtraces its history back to 1915 byS.M. SkaggsinAmerican Falls, Idahoas acash and carrystore. His sonLorenzo L. Skaggs,who had been involved in the predecessor to Safeway, founded thePay-Lesschain in 1937 inRochester, Minnesota.In 1942, these chains merged with others and formed the Owners Service Company, shortened to Osco. In 1961,The Jewel Companies, Inc.acquired Osco Drug Stores. In 1984,American StoresboughtJewel,which had owned Osco Drug since 1961. American Stores was purchased in 1999 byAlbertsons.In 2006, Albertsons was broken up and many standalone Osco stores were purchased byCVS Pharmacy.The Osco name remains in place as the drug store component of Jewel-Osco and Shaw's-Osco stores.
Skaggs Drug Centers and American Stores
[edit]
American Stores,which ownedAcme MarketsandAlpha Beta,was acquired in 1979 by Skaggs Drug Centers, which adopted the American Stores Company name, and relocated the company headquarters to Salt Lake City, Utah.
American Stores was by far the larger organization, with 758 supermarkets, 139 drugstores, 53 restaurants, and 9 general merchandise stores in nine states when compared to the 241 Skaggs stores. Although the resulting entity bore the American Stores Company name, it was controlled by Skaggs management headed by Leonard S. Skaggs Jr. more familiarly known as Sam Skaggs. Stores in several markets having both anAlpha Betasupermarket and a Skaggs Drug Center drugstore presence were combined (or expanded) to combination food and drug stores and re-brandedSkaggs-Alpha Beta.
- In 1977, Skaggs Companies, Inc. had amicably dissolved a partnership started in 1969 with the Albertsons supermarket chain which pioneered the first combination food-drug with stores namedSkaggs-Albertsons.
To consolidate the names of some of its subsidiaries under one title with nationwide recognition, American Stores renamed some of its Skaggs Alpha Beta stores toJewel-Oscoin mid-September 1991. American replaced the Skaggs-Alpha Beta name with that of Jewel-Osco on all 76 stores in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arkansas. One year later, Albertsons would buy 74 Jewel-Osco stores (some only months before named Skaggs-Alpha Beta) in Oklahoma, Florida, Arkansas, and Texas from American Stores. American Stores and its subsidiaries would be acquired by Albertsons in 1999.
Skaggs Foundation
[edit]
L.J. Skaggs along with his wifeMary Skaggsfounded the Skaggs Foundation.
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^Anderson, Heather (2015).Portland: a food biography.Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 174.ISBN978-1-4422-2738-5.OCLC881824352.
- ^"City Gets Chain Stores".Sunday Oregonian.17 July 1921.
- ^Skagg's Safeway, MLK & Broadway, 1929
- ^Safeway Annual Report 1928, p2