March 11, 2004 -- Target Looks to Unload Fields

March 11, 2004 – Target, Inc. announces that it will seek a buyer for Marshall Field’s and for Mervyn’s, a San Francisco-based mid-priced chain.  Since buying the 62 stores that make up the Field’s division in 1990, Target has spent millions to prop up the brand.  Bob Ulrich, Target’s chief executive, says, “We’ve dedicated significant effort to increasing sales and profits at Mervyn’s and Marshall Field’s over many years.  As responsible stewards of the corporation’s assets, we believe it appropriate to identify possible strategic alternatives.’ [Chicago Tribune, March 22, 2004] Field’s began in Chicago in 1852 as a dry-goods store on Lake Street and upon moving to State Street became the nation’s first real department store.  In 1982 Batus Industries, Inc. bought the chain and soon after Dayton Hudson Corp., which became Target Corp., bought the chain from Batus.  Target sold Marshall Field’s to Federated Department stores in 2005, and amid loud protests Federated ended the Field’s saga by making the chain a part of its Macy’s North Division.

March 11, 1942 – Wartime vigilence is in evidence at Fort Sheridan as Private Armand Marschick of Dearborn, Michigan is critically wounded after a sentry stationed at the Walker Avenue entrance to the military base fires at a vehicle that refuses his command to halt.  The driver a “divorcée, clad in cloth coat and negligee, is Mrs. Ruth Staley Hunt, 40 years old, ex-wife of a broker and daughter of the late A. E. Staley, Decatur starch manufacturer.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, March 12, 1942] Hunt, who maintains she lost her way, batters several military policemen “with her fist and feet” when they stop her.  At the Waukegan jail Hunt says, “I’m not going into those filthy cells,” and scratches Deputy Edward Zersen.  Deputies say that Hunt has been drinking.  Two days later four attorneys appear at her arraignment, and trial is set for March 20.  Entering an army post without permission carries a maximum fine of $500 or six months’ imprisonment.  Ultimately, Hunt is sentenced to 15 days in jail, but her troubles are not over.  In April of 1943 she is pulled to safety from the ledge of her fifteenth-story New York penthouse after threatening to jump.

March 11, 1969 -- Close to 700 people, including the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Chicago, John Cardinal Cody, come together at the Highland Park Country Club to celebrate the one-hundredth anniversary of the town's founding. Lieutenant General Vernon Mock, the Fifth Army Commander, is also a guest of honor. When the members of the Stupey family arrived from Germany and in 1847 built the log cabin pictured above, they could not have imagined the North Shore town of over 30,000 souls that exists today.