In the day, Portland, Oregon's downtown was home to a cluster of downtown department stores. With names as Rhodes, Olds, Wortman & King, and Lipman, Wolfe & Company, these were the local versions of retail giants as Gimbels, Macy's, Carson Pirie Scott and Marshall Field. The retail concept was simple - they sold everything and anything that customers would buy. Clothes, shoes, toys, sporting goods, furniture - even boats and bagels! They marketed themselves as THE destination for the 20th century woman including style shows, tea rooms and special events. Thanks to American ingenuity, women in this era enjoyed new found leisure but American family values did not permit entrance to the workplace.

In Portland, the grand dame of the genre was the Meier & Frank Store. It was a conglomeration of three buildings on a single block: The first built in 1909, the second in 1915 and the third in 1932. The first unit was patterned after Chicago's Carson Pirie Scott with a glazed and elaborate white terra cotta exterior. The second unit featured technological innovations as the first escalators on West Coast. The final unit featured "destination" amenities as a Georgian Revival tea room, a Pine Room men's grill, ...