Herbst Department Store held sway on Fargo's Broadway for nearly 90 years. In 1887, a young merchant named Isaac Herbst came to Fargo to seek his fortune. He proved to be a dynamic salesman, and by 1892 he had founded Herbst Department Store. The business was destroyed a year later in the Great Fire of 1893, which wiped out most of downtown. Isaac rebuilt his business and expanded it until his death in 1910. The department store was continued by his widow, sons, grandsons, and a large grou...

On the evening of June 20, 1957, a tornado ripped through Fargo, North Dakota. It caused the deaths of seven children and five adults and left 116 injured. The tornado destroyed 359 buildings and damaged 2,543 more. The nine-mile path of destruction covered over 66 blocks in town, leaving more than 2,000 people homeless and causing approximately $20 million worth of damage. Following the tornado, first responders quickly united to aid those in need, setting up disaster headquarters, findin...

The authoritative account of the rise of Amazon and its intensely driven founder, Jeff Bezos, praised by the Seattle Times as "the definitive account of how a tech icon came to life."Amazon.com started off delivering books through the mail. But its visionary founder, Jeff Bezos, wasn't content with being a bookseller. He wanted Amazon to become the everything store, offering limitless selection and seductive convenience at disruptively low prices. To do so...

"He either enchants or antagonizes everyone he meets. But even his enemies agree there are three things Ray Kroc does damned well: sell hamburgers, make money, and tell stories." --from Grinding It OutFew entrepreneurs can claim to have radically changed the way we live, and Ray Kroc is one of them. His revolutions in food-service automation, franchising, shared national training, and advertising have earned him a place beside the men and women who have fo...

Amazon's business model is deceptively simple: Make online shopping so easy and convenient that customers won't think twice. It can almost be summed up by the button on every page: "Buy now with one click."Why has Amazon been so successful? Much of it has to do with Jeff Bezos, the CEO and founder, whose unique combination of character traits and business strategy have driven Amazon to the top of the online retail world.Richard Brandt charts Bezos's rise from computer nerd ...

A "highly entertaining history [of] global hustling, cola wars and the marketing savvy that carved a niche for Coke in the American social psyche" ( Publishers Weekly).Secret Formula follows the colorful characters who turned a relic from the patent medicine era into a company worth $80 billion. Award-winning reporter Frederick Allen's engaging account begins with Asa Candler, a nineteenth-century pharmacist in Atlanta who secured the rights to the...

Award-winning journalist Gerard Colby takes readers behind the scenes of one of America's most powerful and enduring corporations; now with a new introduction by the authorTheir name is everywhere. America's wealthiest industrial family by far and a vast financial power, the Du Ponts, from their mansions in northern Delaware's "Chateau Country," have long been leaders in the relentless drive to turn the United States into a plutocracy.The Du Pont story in thi...

Explore the broad, fascinating history of the Eaton's department store empire. Exhaustively researched and thoughtfully written by a prominent department store historian. Canada's largest and most well-known department store, Eaton's was an icon of Canadian culture. From its founding in 1869 to its famed catalogue and network of large stores spreading coast to coast, Eaton's offered something for everyone, in grand style. Relive the days when this remarkable store was a fixture in every Ca...

In your pocket is something amazing: a quick and easy way to summon a total stranger who will take you anywhere you’d like. In your hands is something equally amazing: the untold story of Uber’s meteoric rise, and the massive ambitions of its larger-than-life founder and CEO.Before Travis Kalanick became famous as the public face of Uber, he was a scrappy, rough-edged, loose-lipped entrepreneur. And even after taking Uber from the germ of an idea to a $69 billion g...

How maverick companies have passed up the growth treadmill — and focused on greatness instead.It’s an axiom of business that great companies grow their revenues and profits year after year. Yet quietly, under the radar, a small number of companies have rejected the pressure of endless growth to focus on more satisfying business goals. Goals like being great at what they do, creating a great place to work, providing great customer service, making great contributions...

Karen Southwick’s unauthorized account provides the full story of Larry Ellison’s brilliant, controversial career. Ellison’s drive and fierce ambition created Oracle out of the dust and built it into one of America’s great technology companies, but his unpredictable management style keeps it constantly on the edge of both success and disaster. The hostile bid for PeopleSoft is just the most recent example. With one clever strategic move, Larry Ellison threw much of the business software fi...

This biography recounts the rise of the American retail magnate who would go on to open London's famous Selfridge's department stores.In early 1909, a new retail emporium readied for business on the "wrong end of Oxford Street" in London. The man behind it was an odd little American with a waxed mustache and frenetic nature. Harry Gordon Selfridge had spent the previous twenty-five years in Chicago honing his skills at the venerable Marshall Field and Company befor...