Dillard's, Inc. is an upscale American department store chain with approximately 282 stores in 29 states and headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas. Currently, the largest number of stores are located in Texas with 57 and Florida with 42. The company also has stores in 27 more states; however, it is absent from the Northeast (Washington, D.C., and northward), most of the Upper Midwest (Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota), the Northwest, and most of California, aside from three stores in smaller cities. Operations during 20th century Early history Dillard's is the outgrowth of a department store founded in 1938 by William T. Dillard; its corporate headquarters remain located at the eastern edge of Little Rock's Riverdale area and many of its executives and directors are members of the Dillard family. The family retains control of the company through its ownership of Class B Common Stock; the Class A common stock is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Dillard began his first store in Mineral Springs, Arkansas, in what was locally known as "the tater house". It was located across the street from the community's Methodist church. The building that housed the original store was torn down in the early 2000s. Dillard sold the original five and dime store in Nashville, Arkansas, to develop a department store in Texarkana, Arkansas, initially as the minority partner in Wooten & Dillard. In 1956, Dillard led an investment group that acquired the Mayer & Schmidt store in Tyler, Texas. This store eventually took on the name "Dillard's Mayer & Schmidt" until 1974, when it was replaced with a mall-based location south of downtown Tyler. In 1960, Dillard acquired and turned around the failing Brown-Duncan store in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The success of this turnaround was followed in late 1963 by acquiring the Joseph Pfeifer store in Little Rock, Arkansas, and in early 1964 acquiring the other main store in Little Rock, Gus Blass Co. Dillard used this as an opportunity to relocate his headquarters to Little Rock. In 1969, Dillard and his investors took Dillard Department Stores, Inc., public on the American Stock Exchange. 1970–1989 Thereafter, the chain expanded rapidly as an anchor in suburban shopping malls, and took advantage of market conditions to acquire smaller chains as well as its ability to turn around locations that other companies could not operate profitably. Expansion of the Dillard's chain increased rapidly during the 1970s, mainly through expanding