Quote:
Originally Posted by ZodWallop
Well, to be fair, B. Dalton was owned by Barnes and Noble. So they would close B. Dalton when they opened one of their larger Barnes and Noble stores in the same area. The same was true of Waldenbooks/Borders.
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Not originally. B. Dalton was originally started by Bruce Dayton, one of the family in the Dayton's Department store chain. Dayton's merged with Hudson's department store and became Dayton-Hudson (now Target). B. Dalton did merge early on with Pickwick, but both names survived (for a while anyhow). In 1986 B. Dalton had 798 stores (its peak) and then it was bought by Barnes & Noble. From then on B. Dalton dwindled and finally died in 2010 (when the last 50 stores were closed by B&N).
Waldenbooks became part of Borders due to K-Mart buying both chains (which they originally kept separate) and then (finally) spinning them off as their own entity in 1994. In 1995 Borders/Waldenbooks were able to buy themselves out and become independent. In 2011 both Borders and Waldenbooks died, but they had been dwindling for a while.
I'm even more nostalgic about the home town independent book stores that couldn't compete with Barnes & Noble. They mostly went out of business well before B. Dalton's and Waldenbooks.