cards, and vice versa. Sometimes when an advertisement photo showed a membership card, the first letter in the logo was concealed, so the same picture could be used in both Gemco and Memco ads. Memco entered the Washington, D.C., market in 1969 with stores on Little River Turnpike at Braddock Road in Annandale, Virginia, and on Allentown Road in Camp Springs, Maryland. When the chain announced its exit from the market in December 1982, there were 13 stores (including one in Richmond, Virginia, one in Reston, Virginia, and two in the Baltimore area), Columbia, Maryland, and Greenbelt, Maryland, stores had opened just two months earlier, and a 14th store under construction in Burke, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C. The closings idled 1,200 retail workers. All of those locations were converted to Bradlees upon Gemco's closing. Several of the former locations are currently open as Home Depot or Kmart. Home Depot near Fairfax Circle in Fairfax, Virginia, used to be a Memco. Memco also had stores in other locations — for example, one in Arlington Heights, Illinois, one in Niles and one in Lombard — all suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. These stores opened in the early- to mid-1970s. Once they closed, they became Eagle grocery stores. As of 2015, the Arlington Heights store is a Target store. Fictitious town The fictitious town of Gemco, California, is located in Van Nuys, California, near Woodman Avenue and Saticoy Street. It appeared on a map in the 1980s, possibly as a copyright trap, and is now in many mapping databases. It actually was the shorthand name used by the Southern Pacific Railroad to refer to the General Motors Van Nuys Assembly plant. References External links Defunct discount stores of the United States Defunct department stores based in Greater Los Angeles Companies based in Orange County, California American companies established in 1959 Retail companies established in 1959 Retail companies disestablished in 1986 1959 establishments in California 1986 disestablishments in California Defunct companies based in Greater Los Angeles