The Treasury (store)

The General Merchandise Company was a mail order company founded by David Kritzik and his two sons, Robert and Stanley, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Treasure Island was founded as GMC's discount store division, with their first location opening in Appleton, Wisconsin on November 24, 1961. The architecture of these stores, the work of Milwaukee architect Jordan A. Miller, was unique, having utilized a zig-zag pattern that was very prominent both inside and outside. Because of this, the store's merchandise was advertised as being "under the squiggly roof" well into the 1970s.

In 1961, J.C. Penney was looking to break into the catalog business, and after failing to reach an agreement with Aldens in October, looked to acquire General Merchandise, who at the time was the country's fifth-largest catalog merchant. A merger proposal was agreed upon in December 1961, with GMC’s acquisition approved in February 1962.[1]

The small chain, at this point only numbering five stores in Wisconsin, would announce plans in March 1967 to enter the Atlanta, Georgia market in its first expansion. Three stores in Forest Park, Doraville, and Marietta would open simultaneously on May 29, 1968, with a grand opening on July 31 coinciding with the completion of its grocery department.

The Treasure Island name was used into 1969, when it was announced in mid-May that the chain was to expand westward to Orange County, California. It was in July of the same year, however, while announcing an impending entry into the south Florida market that its new name, The Treasury, was divulged. This was, according to Jack F. Behrendt, then-vice president of the stores under J.C. Penney, to shift the chain's image and better express its personality. Stores in the Milwaukee and Atlanta, Georgia markets, in which the Treasure Island name was already well established, were not renamed.

Despite having been announced before the name change, the first locations to use the Treasury name opened in Torrance, Buena Park, and Orange, California on October 29, 1970. The two long-awaited south Florida stores opened in Hialeah and Hollywood on March 4, 1971, and three stores in the Memphis, Tennessee area that had been announced in September 1969 were opened on July 29, 1971.

Some stores also sold food and fuel, like the Wal-Mart Supercenters of today. But the recessions of the 1970s and early 1980s were too much to bear for J.C. Penney, and the discount division started losing money. The Treasury stores were eventually closed in 1981.[2] However, the mail order business, which was the main reason for J.C. Penney's acquisition of Treasure Island, remains a thriving, multibillion-dollar endeavor.

In 1979, The Home Depot chain subsequently launched its first four stores in these former Treasure Island storefronts (which it shared with Zayre) around the Atlanta area, as the home improvement chain was growing around the same time that many Treasure Island stores were already closing.[3]

The company branched out into drug stores, located in many Southern states, as Treasury Drug. Treasury Drug survived into the 1990s when J.C. Penney acquired Eckerd and converted remaining Treasury Drug locations into Eckerd stores. J.C. Penney sold the Eckerd chain to CVS and Jean Coutu Group of Canada in 2004. CVS got roughly 1,200 Eckerd stores in the Southern United States, while Jean Coutu Group got approximately 1,500 Eckerd stores in the Northeastern United States. In 2007, all the remaining Eckerd stores were sold to Rite Aid and rebranded.