Once the nation's largest retailer, Kmart was an early leader in the discount merchandising game. An offshoot of the venerable S. S. Kresge variety store chain, Kmart came to epitomize the familiar, everyday shopping experience of the late twentieth century: a massive parking lot on the edge of town and the large boxlike, single story structure with a bewildering selection of reasonably priced goods. The spontaneous in-store advertising gimmick of a moveable cart with its revolving beacon has made "blue light special" part of American society's shared language. Often the object of ridicule and disparaging comments (the New York Times characterized the store as "a caricature of strip mall culture"), it nevertheless played host to the consumer purchasing power of some 70 million customers. Along with Wal-Mart and Target, Kmart changed the way Americans buy what they need.

The very first Kmart opened in a suburb outside of Detroit...