Once Upon a Time… Gone & Sometimes Forgotten

January 26, 2011 at 6:10 pm (Uncategorized)

I spotted an interesting list about places that are gone (or sorta-gone). There are many reasons a company (or name brand) fades away.. sometimes it has served its time, some times bad choices, some times bad circumstances. I have experienced so many company closings in my life, I pretty much accept a job expecting it to close. There also seems to be a secret step-by-step guide on closing a business out there, every time they deny they are closing, often they remodel or dump large amounts of money into the company, then poof gone.

Aside from some of the highlights from that article.. I definitely can add some places/names that are no more.

• Idlewild Airport, they decided to change it to JFK (December 24, 1963), after Kennedy’s death. The Twilight Zone even has an episode where an airplane was pulled back in time and was calling for Idlewild as he was trying to get his bearings. Odyssey of Flight 33 Feb 24, 1961.
• Do you recall what your local Martin Luther King Blvd was named previously?
• A variety of former malls that became ghost towns.
• No doubt a number of home builders.

There seems to be a common thread with discount stores… Most started in around the 50s-60s.. (some survived like Wal-Mart).. others, not so much..

• Caldor (1951-1999) Caldor was sold to ADG in 1981, ADG merged with May Department store in 1986, May sold the chain in 1990. Caldor suffered two bankruptcies then closed.
• Ames (1958-2002) suffered from the bloat of devouring everything in sight. They started of by using abandoned buildings (the name Ames was from a leftover sign).
  They acquired: 1978 Big N chain (Neisen Brothers), 1984 King’s chain, 1985 GC Murphy, 1988 Zayres (1956-1990, but spun-off successes BJ Wholesale & TJ Maxx).
  between all the stores they bought up, offering credit cards (without checking credit).. 1990 Bankruptcy. They recovered, then resumed acquiring stores.. 1998 Hills Department Stores, 2000 Goldblatt’s. 1999 Bankruptcy part 2, they started closing stores and just could not recover.
• Bradlees 1958-2001
• Jamesway 1961-1995 (former CEO of Ames joined James in 1991)

An original like Montgomery Wards (1872-2001) had its name revived as an online store in 2004, and bought by Swiss Coloney in 2008. Wards had a heck of a journey & interesting history. Wards was quite innovative (evolving catalogs, to stores, electronics, etc), and they bucked trends (like joining malls).  They fought against the competition of Sears, the (over-stepping) power of the government (they refused unions), and more. Wal-Mart has a lot in common with Wards, they also fought the unions, and suffered community backlash. Both started with the same good intention, offering affordable products, and convenience.

Wikipedia: In the first few years, the business was not well received by rural retailers, who considered Ward a threat and sometimes publicly burned his catalog

Now to the list…Long, long ago.. there were company names that were everyday, and common. Off they went with the wind, forgotten.. or soon to be…

MSN: Remember E.F. Hutton? General Foods? TWA? They were once household names, but not anymore. Take a walk down memory lane as we reminisce about some companies that made a big name for themselves, but didn’t stand the test of time.

Looking over the list, there are quite a few I have not forgotten, and some even have come back, I have added additional notes/comments to each item. Here is what they had in their top 10…

1. 1982-2002: Compaq (founded by three senior managers from Texas Instruments) , they were eaten by the HP takeover. Interesting connection(wikipedia)  “Capellas left the company after serving less than a year as President of HP to become CEO of MCI Worldcom, leading it to be purchased by Verizon”
2. 1904-1988: E.F. Hutton. Remember that one? I can still hear the echo from their commercials, “When EF Hutton talks, people listen”. They were acquired by Lehman Brothers (1988), Lehman merged into Citigroup.
3. 1880-2000, survived the Great Depression, only to die due to a merger. PaineWebber, eaten by US Wealth Management USA, for me the name PaineWebber is still by far more memorable, they should have kept the PaineWebber name.
4. 1980s-1994: Merry-Go-Round (included: Dejaiz, Cignal, Chess King) Sadly they were wrapped into their trend, and that was the end.
5. 1983-2005: MCI/Worldcom…Started as LDDS & merged with Advantage Companies.
   They devoured more companies: 1992 Advanced Communications, 1993 Metromedia Communication Corp, 1993 Resurgens communications Group, 1994 IDB Communications Group, 1995  Williams Technology Group, & 1996 MFS communications Company (which included UUNet Technologies)
   In 1995 they became LDDS WorldCom, then changed to WorldCom. 1997 WorldCom acquired MCI, then in 1998 Compuserve  and WorldCom became MCI WorldCom. 2001 they added Intermedia Communications to gain Digex.  
   1999 MCI WorldCom failed at merging with Sprint. 2000 MCI WorldCom then renamed themselves WorldCom. 2002 WorldCom filed for  Bankruptcy.. 2003 WorldCom changed to MCI. 2005 MCI acquired by Verizon.
   Summary: Merger madness, name changes all to hide fraud… Verizon Business bought them out, so was the end of the MCI story.
6. 1926-1991: Eastern Airlines, started off as an US Postal carrier (airline).. then moved up to domestic travel, then flopped. Perhaps because the first time I was ever on an airplane until this century, I just do not recall their name at all.
7. 1932-2001? Enron.. roots Northern Natural Gas Company (former 1932), reorganized in 1979 with InterNorth. InterNorth bought Houston Natural Gas in 1985. .Once they created the name Enron, this basically  is when the lies &  scandals started. The effects continued for years. I think the name Enron should be a synonym for sleaze. (I noted a question mart next to their end year, since it seems they still were operating well past 2001).
8. 1879-1997 Woolworth, (one of America’s original 5 & dime) they lasted over a century. Sadly  they suffered from gluttony and kept acquiring shops (Kinney, Champs, Foot Locker).. only the Foot Locker name remains.
9. 1927-1991, Pan Am (Started as a mail carrier). When I think of them I do not tie them in with financial losses, but with terrorist hijackings, it seems their name was always tied in with a hijacking. I checked to see if that connection was accurate.. and here are some of the hijacking related Pan Am incidents, plus On Findatarget: they talk about Pan Am history, and that November 2010 the Pan Am name is back, as a cargo carrier, but plans to start passenger service in 2011. (On  AirSafe they highlight some of the worst hijackings since 1970. )
   Pan Am 73 (9-5-86) Pakistan 
   Pan Am 93 (9-6-70) Amsterdam
   Pan Am 103 (12-21-88) Lockerbie
   Pan Am 110 (12-17-73) Rome
   Pan Am 281 (11-24-68)
   Pan Am 830 (8-11-82)
   Pan Am 1736 (3-27-77)  (was a bomb scare that ended up as a runway collision.. so what could have been one disaster ended up as another disaster).
10. 1870-1911L Standard Oil, killed by the Sherman Anti Trust Act of 1890. This spawned off Chevron, Exxon & ConocoPhillips.
11. 1862-1982: Pullman Palace Car Co. (manufactured railroad cars & created the sleeping berths on trains) Another victim of government involvement. Neat item, after George Pullman died in 1897, Abraham Lincoln’s son (Robert Todd Lincoln)  took over as president of the company.
12. 1913: Arthur Andersen, as one of the facets of Enron’s fraud. Interesting Arthur Andersen was based in Chicago, is there anything non-crime/fraud related to Chicago? Somehow, though they surrendered their accounting license they are still limping by in business, here is what they have for a website Arthur Andersen, I think that says so much (but they are not gone yet).
13. 1929-General Foods (Sanka, Tang, Kool-Aid, Burger Chef restaurants, Oscar Mayer). 1985 General Foods was acquired by Philip Morris, which became Altria (that is a very forgettable name). 1988 Philip Morris then acquired Kraft, then 1990 Altria created Kraft Foods. General Foods name was dropped officially in 1995, but used as General Foods International (for flavored coffees). With the name PhilipsMorris my first thought is cigarettes, how creepy a cigarette company acquiring a food company. No doubt the Altria is better, but very forgettable.
14. 1930-2001: TWA. After suffering a take over, they were then bought by American Airlines in 2001.
15. 1981-1982 DeLorean (DMC12),  too odd to find buyers,but in 1985  it found its home in the movie “Back to the Future”. (the prototype was completed in 1976, and offered to America in 1981) (The DeLorean name and all the remaining parts were acquired, and a company in Texas is creating refurbished original DeLoreans)

They continued with a list of Honorable Mentions..

• Lionel Corp: 1900-1993 (the true end 1959, when Cowen & son sold to, grand-nephew,  Roy Cohn). In the end Cohn sold the brand name rights to General Mills. Lionel Corp in its decline tried a variety of last-ditch attempts to survive, like opening toy stores (Lionel Kiddie City).. sadly wrong time & wrong place.
• Adelphia: 1952-2006. Acquired by Time Warner Cable & Comcast.. and the phone portion was sold to Pioneer Telephone.
• Pets.com 1999-2000, they had a sock puppet spokes”person”. They bought out Petstore.com in 2000. Between shelling out around 20x what they earned, offering products for less than they paid, and free shipping.. there was no way they could survive. The sock-puppet was saved by “Bar None Inc“ (1995, then sold to First Advantage in 2005, then sold to Centro 2009).
• Bear Stearns: 1923-2008 Survived the Market Crash in 1929 without a single layoff only to be sold off for fraction of its value to JP Morgan in 2008.
• Beatrice Food Products 1894-1990