T HE S TO R Y OF TAR G ET n the morning of May 1 1962 the first Target store opened in a renovated retail building on the corner of Snelling Avenue and Highway 36 in Roseville Minnesota Shoppers accustomed to perusing Target s pricier sister store Dayton's rushed through the doors to push red carts through the wide clean aisles and peruse the discounted prices on everything from groceries and clothing to appliances and auto supplies They even found innovative elec tronics in a department that included several selections of the latest rage FM radios As they filled their carts with goods the checkout lines grew longer and longer To help keep things moving executives from The Dayton Company manned additional cash registers corporate staffers even volunteered to bag the merchan dise for customers BUILT FOR SUCCESS
CHAPTER O N E Taking Aim he Dayton family had been in the retail business since 1902 when George Draper Dayton and a partner opened Goodfellow's Dry Goods in a six story building in downtown Minneapolis Minnesota With an orchestra serenading customers and well dressed clerks happily ringing up their purchases of everything from fine clothing and jewelry to blankets carpets and curtains the store soon became a popular venue Within a year Dayton had bought out his partner and switched out Goodfellow's with his own name In 1911 he renamed the store once again now calling it The Dayton Company Dayton his sons and his grandsons spent the next several decades building that business on the corner of Nicollet Avenue and Seventh Street in Minneapolis It doubled in size and turned a tidy profit every year Eventually it became clear that the store needed to expand its reach In 1954 the company opened the first branch store in nearby Rochester Minnesota and in 1956 it built the first enclosed shopping mall in the country with a Dayton's store anchoring one end ofit in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina THE STORY OF TARGET
DAYTONS EETE ID ID IDY TONS GE AN iHil MILES Dayton s customers of the early 1900s traveled to downtown Minneapolis by foot horse and car T AR G ET
