Fred Meyer is an American chain of hypermarket superstores founded in 1922 in Portland, Oregon, USA, by Fred G. Meyer. The stores are found in the northwest U.S., within the states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska. The company merged with Kroger in 1998, though the stores are still branded Fred Meyer. The chain was one of the first in the United States to promote one-stop shopping, eventually combining a complete grocery supermarket with a drugstore, bank, clothing, jewelry, home decor, home improvement, garden, electronics, restaurant, shoes, sporting goods and toys. The western region of Kroger corporation is headquartered in Portland. History 1920s–1950s: beginnings In 1922, the first Fred Meyer store opened in Portland at the corner of SW 5th & Yamhill. The store combined separate shops under one roof such as meat, produce, cheese, and other merchandise. Mr. Meyer’s vision was to give customers more reasons to shop in his store than in any other. The first suburban one-stop shopping center opened in 1931 in the Hollywood District of Portland, a neighborhood he deliberately chose through an application of market research: he would pay customers' overtime parking tickets that they incurred while shopping at his downtown store, just to obtain their home addresses. The store's innovations included a grocery store alongside a drugstore plus home products, off-street parking, gas station, and eventually, clothing. Fred G. Meyer would base store locations on planned highway construction. In 1951, the Fred Meyer Company built a large warehouse near Providence Portland Medical Center in Laurelhurst, despite complaints and controversy from neighbors and the city council. Neighbors did not want large truck volume in their city, but the area was already zoned for industrial and commercial east of 44th Avenue. The huge warehouse was built to the detriment of the Banfield Expressway, built in Sullivan's Gulch less than five years later. The warehouse had to be condemned and partially destroyed for the freeway, with the state highway commission selling the remaining sections to the Bemis Company. The Fred Meyer Company moved to Swan Island on land formerly occupied by wartime housing for Kaiser Shipyards. 1960s–1970s: first acquisitions and founder's death In the 1960s, Fred Meyer entered the Seattle market by acquiring Seattle-based Marketime Drugs. Fred Meyer also acquired a Spokane-based grocery wholesaler, The Roundup Company. Roundup owned no stores in Spokane but owned Kalispell, Montana-based B&B stores in northwest Montana and Consumer Warehouse Foods