Ancestry.com
Ancestry.com LLC is a held online company based in Lehi, Utah. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical record and genetic genealogy websites; as of November 2018, the company claimed to provide access to 10 billion historical records, to have 3 million paying subscribers and to have sold 14 million DNA kits to customers. In 1990, Paul B. Allen and Dan Taggart, two Brigham Young University graduates, founded Infobases and began offering Latter-day Saints publications on floppy disks. In 1988, Allen had worked at Folio Corporation, founded by his brother Curt and his brother-in-law Brad Pelo. Infobases' first products were floppy disks and compact disks sold from the back seat of the founders' car. In 1994, Infobases was named among Inc. magazine's 500 fastest-growing companies. Their first offering on CD was the LDS Collectors Edition, released in April 1995, selling for $299.95, offered in an online version in August 1995. Ancestry went online with the launch of Ancestry.com in 1996.
On January 1, 1997, Infobases' parent company, Western Standard Publishing, purchased Ancestry, Inc. publisher of Ancestry magazine and genealogy books. Western Standard Publishing's CEO was Joe one of the principal owners of Geneva Steel. In July 1997, Allen and Taggart purchased Western Standard's interest in Inc.. At the time, Brad Pelo was president and CEO of Infobases, president of Western Standard. Less than six months earlier, he had been president of Folio Corporation, whose digital technology Infobases was using. In March 1997, Folio was sold to Open Market for $45 million; the first public evidence of the change in ownership of Ancestry magazine came with the July/August 1997 issue, which showed a newly reorganized Ancestry, Inc. as its publisher. That issue's masthead included the first use of the Ancestry.com web address. More growth for Infobases occurred in July 1997, when Ancestry, Inc. purchased Bookcraft, Inc. a publisher of books written by leaders and officers of the LDS Church.
Infobases had published many of Bookcraft's books as part of its LDS Collector's Library. Pelo announced that Ancestry's product line would be expanded in both CDs and online. Alan Ashton, a longtime investor in Infobases and founder of WordPerfect, was its chairman of the board. Allen and Taggart began running Ancestry, Inc. independently from Infobases in July 1997, began creating one of the largest online subscription-based genealogy database services. In April 1999, to better focus on its Ancestry.com and MyFamily.com Internet businesses, Infobases sold the Bookcraft brand name and its catalog of print books to its major competitor in the LDS book market, Deseret Book. Included in the sale were the rights to Infobases' LDS Collectors Library on CD. A year earlier, Deseret Book had released a competing product called GospeLink, the two products were combined as a single product by Deseret Book; the MyFamily.com website launched in December 1998, with additional free sites beginning in March 1999.
The site generated one million registered users within its first 140 days. The company raised more than US$90 million in venture capital from investors and changed its name on November 17, 1999, from Ancestry.com, Inc. to MyFamily.com, Inc. Its three Internet genealogy sites were called Ancestry.com, FamilyHistory.com, MyFamily.com. Sales were about US$62 million for 2002 and US$99 million for 2003. In March 2004, the company, which had outgrown its call center in Orem, opened a new call center, which accommodates about 700 agents at a time, in Provo. Heritage Makers was acquired by MyFamily.com in September 2005. While the company had been offering free access to Ancestry.com at LDS Family History Centers, that service was terminated on March 17, 2007, because the company and the LDS Church were unable to reach a mutually agreeable licensing agreement. In 2010, Ancestry restored access to its site at Family History Centers. In 2010, Ancestry sold its book publishing assets to Turner Publishing Company.
Ancestry.com became a publicly traded company on NASDAQ on November 5, 2009, with an initial public offering of 7.4 million shares priced at $13.50 per share, underwritten by Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Jefferies & Company, Piper Jaffray, BMO Capital Markets. In 2010, Ancestry.com expanded its domestic operations with the opening of an office in San Francisco, staffed with brand new engineering and marketing teams geared toward developing some of Ancestry's cutting-edge technology and services. In 2011, Ancestry launched an iOS app. In December 2011, Ancestry.com moved the Social Security Death Index search behind a paywall and stopped displaying the Social Security information of people who had died within the past 10 years, because of identity theft concerns. In March 2012, Ancestry.com acquired the collection of DNA assets from GeneTree. In September 2012, Ancestry.com expanded its international operations with the opening of its European headquarters in Dublin, Ireland.
The Dublin office includes a new call centre for international customers, as well as product and engineering teams. In October 2012, Ancestry.com agreed to be acquired by a private equity group consisting of Permira Advisers LLP, members of Ancestry.com's management team, including CEO Tim Sullivan and CFO Howard Hochhauser, Spectrum Equity, for $32 per share or around $1.6 billion. At the same time, Ancestry.com purchased a photo digitization and sharing service called 1000Memories. On July 16, 2015, Ancestry launched AncestryHealth, announced the appointment of Cathy A. Petti as its Chief Health Officer. In April 2016 GIC Private Limited (a sovereign wealth fund owned by the Government of S
Arcadia Publishing
Arcadia Publishing is an American publisher of neighborhood and regional history of the United States in pictorial form. Arcadia Publishing runs the History Press, which publishes text-driven books on American history and folklore, it was founded in Dover, New Hampshire, in 1993 by United Kingdom-based Tempus Publishing, but became independent after being acquired by its CEO in 2004. The corporate office is in South Carolina, it has a catalog of more than 12,000 titles, it—along with its subsidiary, The History Press—publishes 900 new titles every year. Its formula for regional publishing is to use local writers or historians to write about their community using 180 to 240 black-and-white photographs with captions and introductory paragraphs in a 128 page book; the Images of America series is the company's largest product line. Other series include Images of Rail, Images of Sports, Images of Baseball, Black America, Postcard History, Campus History, Corporate History, Legendary Locals, Images of Modern America, Then & Now.
In 2010, Arcadia became the first major publisher to print all of their books on Forest Stewardship Council paper. All of the publishers books are printed and manufactured in South Carolina on American-made paper. In May 2017, Arcadia acquired Palmetto Publishing Group, a Charleston-based self-publishing service, in business since 2015. In 2018, Arcadia was acquired by a new company owned by Lili and Michael Lynton. In March 2019, Walter Isaacson became the editor-at-large and senior adviser for Arcadia Publishing, where he will be promoting books for the comany as well as editing, new strategy development, partnerships; the History Press is a subsidiary publishing house, owned by Arcadia. Its books deal with "narratives of local heroes, tragic losses, collections of homegrown recipes, historic mysteries, everything in between." Some of their series include: American Legends, Forgotten Tales, Haunted America. The History Press was a US subsidiary of the UK-based publisher of the same name. In 2014, the US-based portion of The History Press was sold to Arcadia Publishing.
The books are printed in the United States. It handles its own sales and distribution with the following each accounting for one-third of the company's sales: Bookstore chains Independent bookstores and museums Nontraditional outlets Alan Sutton Official website Arcadia Publishing: Expands Distribution to Reach More Readers Alexander Street and Arcadia Publishing Launch Local History Collection Containing Hundreds of Thousands of Images and Texts
Westfield Palm Desert
Westfield Palm Desert, is a regional shopping mall located in Palm Desert, California which serves the Coachella Valley. The mall is presently owned through a joint venture between O'Connor Capital Partners and Westfield Corporation. Current mall anchors are Macy's, Sears, JCPenney, Dick's Sporting Goods, Barnes & Noble, 122 inline stores. In addition, the mall includes Tristone Palm Desert 10 Cinemas; the shopping center was opened as Palm Desert Town Center. The $75 million project spanned 62 acres and included four major department stores, 130 inline shops, an 8-screen theater, a food court and an indoor ice skating rink. Other stores included. A small arcade called The Yellow Brick Road was on the second level above the skating rink, next to the food court. Original anchor stores were May Company, Bonwit Teller, JCPenney, Bullock's. In 1987, Bonwit Teller decided to close all of its Californian stores and its spot at the mall was taken by Bullocks Wilshire; this was the first time that a Bullocks Wilshire store was located in the same mall with a Bullock's store.
A fifth anchor, J. W. Robinson's, opened a few months in 1987. After developing and managing the property for a number of years, Hahn was able to purchase the property from its owner, Palm Desert Town Center Associates, in 1989. In August 1999, Westfield America, Inc. announced it had acquired Palm Desert Town Center from TrizecHahn Corporation, the successor to Hahn, for $82 million. Following the acquisition, the name became Westfield Shoppingtown Palm Desert. However, in 2005 the company migrated away from this branding strategy and dropped'Shoppingtown' from most of its U. S. properties. The mall became Westfield Palm Desert. Over the years the mall has gone through many changes resulting from various mergers and acquisitions in the retail industry; this resulted in consolidation of regional department stores and led to vacant anchor spaces at the mall. Barnes & Noble moved into the mall in 2003. In 2013, a renovation plan began which involved converting a two-level vacant anchor space on the north side to Dick's Sporting Goods and World Gym on the first level of the space.
In addition, a vacant two-level anchor on the south side was converted into a Grand Entrance with frontage on California State Route 111, a busy thoroughfare running through the city. The demolition involved preservation of the subterranean level of the space occupied by Bullock's. Macy's incorporated this space into its existing furniture store, situated below Barnes & Noble; the Grand Entrance includes new sit-down restaurants and retail space and is accented with decorative water fountains. An expansion plan announced in 2006 included the addition of a full line Nordstrom department store on the north and a significant remodel and expansion of the existing theater; the plan never came to fruition given the economic downturn. As of December 2014, Westfield Palm Desert was 95.1 % leased. The 980,041-square-foot mall offers 495,538-square-feet of specialty store space and has significant potential for future expansion. In 2015, Sears Holdings spun off 235 of its properties, including the Sears at Westfield Palm Desert, into Seritage Growth Properties.
Official website
Southland Mall (Hayward, California)
Southland Mall is a shopping mall in Hayward, California owned and managed by Brookfield Properties Retail Group. The mall is a single-level structure, with a small lower level beneath anchor retailer JC Penney, a movie theater, free standing restaurants in the outlying parking areas; the center is located off Interstate 880 at the western end of the city. Southland Mall website Southland Mall at bigmallrat blog Southland Mall at labelscar.com website
Indio, California
Indio is a city in Riverside County, United States, located in the Coachella Valley of Southern California's Colorado Desert region. It lies 23 miles east of Palm Springs, 75 miles east of Riverside, 127 miles east of Los Angeles, 148 miles northeast of San Diego; the word Indio is Spanish for Indian. The population was 76,036 in the 2010 United States Census, up from 49,116 at the 2000 census, an increase of 55%. Indio was referred to as "the Hub of the Valley", a Chamber of Commerce slogan used in the 1970s. Today the nickname is the "City of Festivals", a reference to the numerous renowned cultural events held in the city, most notably the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. Railroad line construction east out of Los Angeles began in 1873. Trains were operated to Colton on July 16, 1875, to Indio on May 29, 1876. Moving on eastward from Indio, the railroad reached the west bank of the Colorado River opposite Yuma on May 23, 1877. There was delay in getting military authority to lay tracks across the Yuma Indian reservation, it was September that year before the bridge was completed so trains could operate into Yuma.
The Southern Pacific Railroad was to have joined those of the Texas & Pacific, one of several railroads holding, or seeking, federal authority to build lines from various sections of the country west to the Pacific Coast. But the rail-head of the T & P was at a standstill far off in Texas, so Southern Pacific continued building eastward.. The City of Indio came about because of the need of a halfway point for the Southern Pacific Railroad between Yuma and Los Angeles, since the engines needed to be refilled with water. At first, the would-be city was called Indian Wells, but since many other areas had that name, Indio was chosen instead. After the railroad's arrival in 1876, Indio started to grow; the first permanent building was hotel. Southern Pacific tried to make life as comfortable as it could for their workers in order to keep them from leaving such a difficult area to live in at the time, it was at the center of all social life in the desert with a fancy dining room and hosting dances on Friday nights.
While Indio started as a railroad town, it soon became agricultural. Onions, grapes and dates thrived in the arid climate due to the ingenuity of farmers finding various means of attaining water, first through artesian wells and through the valley’s branch of the All-American Canal. However, water was a major problem for Indio and the city was flooded several times until the storm water canals were created throughout the Coachella Valley. Businessmen and women found this last frontier land of the continental United States as an ideal place to start fresh. Dr. Harry Smiley and his wife Nell were early residents and stayed in Indio after their car broke down on the way to Los Angeles and became people of influence and helped shape the area. A. G. Tingman was an early storeowner and first Postmaster of Indio, but well known for taking advantage of miners as they headed to the mountains, selling at rather high prices. Dr. June Robertson McCarroll became a leading philanthropist and successful doctor in Indio.
She was responsible along with the Indio Woman’s Club for pressing California into adopting the placing of white lines down the streets after she nearly got hit one too many times by passing vehicles. Though these early founders of the city are considered pioneers, they still partook in the lifestyles of their friends living in such areas as Los Angeles. Indio established itself and kept up with the trends as they were brought in by the railroads. By the turn of the 20th century, Indio was more than a fading railroad town. Schools were built, the La Casita hospital provided medical services, families established roots. By 1920, about one to two thousand year-round residents lived in Indio, while it doubled to 2,500 to 5,000 during the winter months and was advertised as a health resort for senior citizens and those with respiratory diseases and ailments in the rest of the 20th century. Indio served as the home of the USDA’s Date Station, a place where leading scientific research was taking place on the fruit that would become a major part of the culture of Indio.
The station started in 1907 and was responsible for the ability of local farmers to better understand this unique crop and make the Coachella Valley a leader in American date crops. This created a tie to the Middle East that led to the theme for the County Fair with the Middle Eastern flair. Coachella and Thermal soon became larger cities than Indio, but Indio remained the “Hub of the Valley,” as it was called. With the burning of the majority of Thermal and the decline of Coachella, Indio grew again. By 1930, Indio was a thriving area and incorporated. On September 6, 1930, storekeeper Fred Kohler received the first business license in Indio. Indio was aided by the visiting soldiers from Patton’s training grounds in Chiriaco Summit located 30 miles to the east. However, Indio saw another decline as the valley’s population begin to move west towards newer cities such as Palm Desert. However, there is now a reversal in this trend and the eastern section of the valley is poised to once again become the center of the Coachella Valley.
The city had significant unemployment rates in the late 20th century and from the recession in the late 2000s. The rate in 2006 was under 5 percent after the loc
Bay Street Emeryville
Bay Street Emeryville is a large mixed-use development in Emeryville, California which has 65 stores, ten restaurants, a sixteen-screen movie theater, 230 room hotel, 400 residential units with 1,000 residents. It is near several hotels, an IKEA store and three other shopping centers: East Bay Bridge Shopping Center, Emeryville Marketplace, Powell Street Plaza; the mall was built on the site of the Emeryville Shellmound. Temescal Creek runs spring water and Emeryville urban through the property in an channelized open culvert with concrete lining to the confluence with the bay at the Crescent wetlands, it is adjacent to Interstates 80 and 580 in addition to the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge and the MacArthur Maze. It is across from the Emeryville Crescent State Marine Reserve; the mall has the only LEED certified West Elm that provides some of its own solar energy, with a grass roof to provide habitat for insects, substantial use of sky lights to reduce energy use. The mall is built on former toxic waste site.
Since 2001 there has been a "don't buy anything day" hosted at the site by descendants of the Ohlones that believe the site has desecrated the resting place of their ancestors. In 2010 the mall began to attract tourists to a 34-foot-tall Christmas tree made out of 84 shopping carts; the unique tree created by artist Anthony Schmitt originated from Santa Monica, where it was displayed every winter season until 2014. New general management took over in 2017. Bay Street features a mix of upscale and traditional mall retailers, with a two-level Barnes & Noble bookstore, flagship West Elm and Apple stores, four Gap, Inc brands: Gap, Old Navy and separate men's and women's Banana Republic stores. California Pizza Kitchen, P. F. Chang's China Bistro, Rubio's Coastal Grill restaurants, UNIQLO, standalone H&M men's and women's stores, an AMC Theatres cinema are present; the mall has public transport access by AC Transit local bus line 36 between the West Oakland BART station and the University of California, furthermore transbay commuter routes C, F, J to the San Francisco Transbay Terminal and Z reverse commute from San Francisco to Emeryville.
The Emeryville Amtrak Station, free Emery-go-Round shuttles on the Shellmound/Powell line to MacArthur BART station and other areas in the city. Parking free, now costs US$2–10 depending on the length of stay; the fees have been controversial, as they have been raised over the years. Official website
I. Magnin
I. Magnin & Company was a San Francisco, California-based high fashion and specialty goods luxury department store. Over the course of its existence, it expanded across the West into Southern California and the adjoining states of Arizona and Washington. In the 1970s, under Federated Department Stores ownership, the chain entered the Chicago and Washington, DC, metropolitan areas. Mary Ann Magnin named the chain after her husband, Isaac. In the early 1870s, Dutch-born Mary Ann Magnin and her husband Isaac Magnin left England and settled in San Francisco. Mary Ann opened a shop in high-end clothing for infants, she expanded into bridal wear. As her business grew, her exclusive clientele relied on her for the newest fashions from Paris. I. Magnin imported clothing by major designers including Jeanne Lanvin, Hattie Carnegie, Christian Dior. At the turn of the century, Mary Ann’s four sons entered the business. While John Magnin, Grover Magnin, Sam Magnin became associated with the I. Magnin store, the fourth son, Joseph Magnin, became known for his own store.
The 1906 earthquake and fire leveled the San Francisco store with the remainder of the downtown area. The store reopened in new quarters at 50 Grant Avenue at Geary Boulevard in 1912. During the 1910s, the chain opened shops in six high-end hotels in California; the Los Angeles Wilshire Boulevard branch and the Union Square store were among the most elegant in America. When designer Christian Dior visited, he toured the Union Square store, called it the "White Marble Palace". In 1944, the chain was bought by the Los Angeles-based Bullock's department store chain. In the late 1950s the combined chain expanded into the Southern California suburbs by opening the Fashion Square concept in Santa Ana in 1958, the San Fernando Valley in 1962 and Del Amo in 1965. After a major proxy battle in 1964, Bullocks-I. Magnin was merged into Federated Department Stores. Bullock's, I. Magnin, Bullocks Wilshire were run as separate divisions of Federated. I. Magnin expanded in the Chicago and Washington, D. C. areas in the 1970s.
R. H. Macy & Company had long yearned in the 1980s to enter the Southern California market. Along with trying to build their own stores, they attempted to purchase Federated losing a takeover war to the Campeau Corporation in 1988; as part of the settlement with Campeau, Macy's purchased Bullock's, Bullock's Wilshire and I. Magnin, subsequently beginning a reorganization of its divisions and consolidating the I. Magnin and Bullock's Wilshire stores into a semi-autonomous division under Macy's California; the seven Bullock's Wilshire stores were renamed I. Magnin in 1989. In 1991 Macy's announced plans to re-align its divisional structure and created a new Macy's West/Bullock's division by February 1992. While in the process of doing so, it declared bankruptcy on January 27, 1992. During the next two years, the I. Magnin group shuttered 11 stores of an already-reduced franchise with the historic original Bullock's Wilshire flagship on Wilshire Boulevard closed in early 1993 after years of losses aggravated by the effects of the 1992 Rodney King riots.
The Oakland, store was closed in 1995. In 1994 Federated Department Stores reached an agreement with R. H. Macy's creditors to buy the company out of bankruptcy, completing the acquisition on December 19 and making Macy's West/Bullock's a division of Federated. Before the acquisition closed, it pulled the plug on the remainder of the I. Magnin chain selling four stores to Saks Fifth Avenue and converting six former I. Magnin locations in Palo Alto, Walnut Creek, Woodland Hills, Palm Desert, Newport Beach, Palos Verdes to specialty Macy's or Bullock's locations, replicating the success of the 1991 conversion of I. Magnin at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, California into a separate Bullock's Men's location; the upper floors of the former I. Magnin store on Union Square were converted to an expansion of Macy's West's own adjoining flagship. I. Magnin Building Frick, Devin Thomas. I. Magnin & Co. A California Legacy. Park Place Press, Orange County, CA. ISBN 0-9663493-1-8. Hendrickson, Robert; the Grand Emporiums: The Illustrated History of American’s Great Department Stores.
Stein and Day, New York, NY. ISBN 0-8128-2516-0. Mahoney, Tom; the Great Merchants: America’s Foremost Retail Institutions and the People Who Made Them Great. Harper & Row, New York, NY. ISBN 0-06-012739-2. Mullane, James Thomas. A Store to Remember. Falcon Books, San Ramon, CA. ISBN 0-9788513-0-7
