Beginnings

The company was founded by Polish immigrant brothers Lipman, Samuel, and Marcus Younker, who opened a general store in Keokuk, Iowa in 1856. Herman Younker, the youngest of the brothers, opened a dry goods store in Des Moines, Iowa in 1874. Following Samuel's death in 1879, the Keokuk store was closed and the Des Moines location became the main store. The future novelist and newspaper editor Eleanor Hoyt Brainerd worked as a clerk at the Younkers store in Des Moines in 1889. In 1899 the Younker brothers' main store in downtown Des Moines was moved to 7th and Walnut Streets, and it operated at the same location for 106 years before closing on August 12, 2005. The downtown Des Moines store became known for its Tea Room restaurant, which opened in 1913 and closed shortly before the store did. It also installed Iowa's first escalator, known as the "electric stairs," in 1939.

Younkers Incorporated

The original Younkers store in downtown Des Moines, Iowa. The building has been vacant since the store closed on August 12, 2005.

A series of additions, enlargements, and mergers resulted in the company changing its name to Younkers Incorporated. The department store in downtown Des Moines was purchased in 1912. The company started growing in the 1920s by acquiring other department stores throughout Iowa, including Wilkins Department Stores (1923), Harris-Emery (1927), and J. Mandelbaum and Sons (1928). The Iowa-based retailers Britnalls of Marshalltown and Davidson's of Sioux City were acquired in 1948 and Yetters of Iowa City was acquired in 1949. Younkers began expanding outside of Iowa during the 1950s and opened its first shopping mall store in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1955. (It acquired another Omaha department store, Kilpatrick's, in 1961.) By 1978 Younkers had 28 stores in five states.

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