Private company
Hudson's
Logo: CBessert, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons3
American department store
The J. L. Hudson Company (commonly known simply as Hudson's) was an upscale retail department store chain based in Detroit, Michigan. Hudson's flagship store, on Woodward Avenue in Downtown Detroit (demolished October 24, 1998), was the tallest department store in the world in 1961, and, at one time, claimed to be the second-largest department store, after Macy's, in the United States, by square footage.2 It ceased to exist in 2001.1 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0
Last updated Oct 21, 2026.
Overview
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The J. L. Hudson Company (commonly known simply as Hudson's) was an upscale retail department store chain based in Detroit, Michigan. Hudson's flagship store, on Woodward Avenue in Downtown Detroit (demolished October 24, 1998), was the tallest department store in the world in 1961, and, at one time, claimed to be the second-largest department store, after Macy's, in the United States, by square footage.2
Products and brands
Hudson's Budget Store occupied two full basement levels of the downtown store as well as several branches. It had an independent staff of buyers, carried its own line of merchandise, and was considered the greatest competition to the big store.
Hudson's expanded into suburban Detroit, starting with the anchor store at Northland Center in nearby Southfield, Michigan, the largest shopping center in the United States when it opened, in 1954. Similar suburban malls followed (Eastland Center in 1957 and Westland Center in 1965) as well as other locations throughout the tri-state region. The Dayton Co. of Minneapolis acquired The J.L. Hudson Co. in 1969 to form the Dayton–Hudson Corporation, the predecessor to Target Corporation, but "The J.L. Hudson Co." continued to operate as a semiautonomous entity. Dayton–Hudson eventually acquired and sold several other department store chains.
From Wikipedia’s article on Hudson's, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4
Timeline
Links
- WikipediaHudson's
- More imagesWikimedia Commons
- WikidataQ5928459
Sources
The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.
- 1WikidataHudson's on Wikidata
- 2WikipediaHudson's on Wikipedia
- 3Wikimedia CommonsHudson's logo by CBessert, CC BY 4.0
- 4
- 5Wikimedia CommonsHudson's photo by Detroit Public Library, Public domain