Meier and Frank (Portland, Or.)

Meier & Frank was the premier department store in Portland, Oregon, from the late 1800s to 2006. The store originated in 1857, when Aaron Meier opened a small mercantile establishment on SW Front and Yamhill. In 1873 Sigmund Frank became a partner in the enterprise, and the store expanded rapidly as the city grew. In 1898 Meier & Frank moved to a large new five-story building at SW Fifth Avenue and Morrison Street, and between 1909 and 1915 this original structure was replaced with the complex that currently (in 2007) fills the entire block. Even greater expansion took place beginning in the 1950s, as branches were opened in Salem (1955), Portland’s Lloyd Center (1960), Eugene (1969), Vancouver, Washington (1977) and elsewhere. But by the mid 1960s the store was faced with competition from nation-wide chains, and the firm was sold to the May Company (later Robinsons-May) in 1966. The store continued to bear the Meier and Frank name, but with the merger of Robinsons-May with Macy’s in the mid-2000s, the Meier & Frank name was finally superseded by the Macy’s trademark in 2006.

From the guide to the Meier and Frank Company collection, 1855-2006, (Oregon Historical Society)