K-Mart is based in Troy, Michigan and is one of the nation's three largest retailers, along with Wal-Mart and Sears. The company was derived from an earlier five-and-dime store started in Memphis and Detroit by Sebastian S. Kresge and John McCrory in 1897. The partnership dissolved in 1899, and Kresge took the store in Detroit and McCrory the one in Memphis. Kresge incorporated as the S.S. Kresge Company in 1912. By this time, the company was the second largest dime store chain in the United States, and the chain expanded rapidly over the next several decades. In the late 1920s and 1930s, Kresge opened stores in suburban shopping centers, and by the 1950s the chain was one of the largest general merchandise retailers in the country.
In 1958 the company conducted a marketing study, and management then decided to enter discount retailing. Three unprofitable locations were transformed into Jupiter Discount stores. This was in 1961, and the program was judged to be a success. Kresge opened the first K Mart discount store in Detroit in 1962, and Kresge also formed a joint venture with G.J. Coles & Coy Ltd. to operate K-Mart stores in Australia beginning in 1968. The company continued to build on the K-Mart format in the 1970s and made great progress, changing its corporate name to K-Mart in 1977. In 1980, the company began to diversify with the purchase of Furr's Cafeterias and Bishop Buffets, though both were later sold in 1986. In 1984 K-Mart bought Walden Book Company and Builders Square, formerly Home Centers of America. In 1985 K-Mart acquired Payless Drug Stores Northwest and Bargain Harold's Discount Outlets of Canada, sold in 1990. Ironically, most of the remaining Kresge and Jupiter Discount locations in the U.S. were sold in 1987 to McCrory's, the chain started by Kresge's former partner. K-Mart also entered the warehouse club business in 1988 with Makro. In 1990 the company added the 17 Price Savers clubs
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