Goldblatt's post to be the initial post

And it'll be about the department store chain Goldblatt's. Sorry for the lack of posts since my introductory post, as it's because I want to ensure that posts I make here are thorough, carefully researched, and I cover as much ground as I can in each post. Plus, I am hoping to get permission from various photographers if I can use their pictures for posts here, when it comes to things I do not have pictures of(if I do use any pics, the photographer will get full credit for the pic, and I will ask for his/her permission first). I'm hoping to get that one up no later than Christmas, and perhaps within the next 1-2 weeks. After that, the next chains I'll cover will probably be Bergner's, K's Merchandise, and Wieboldt's(haven't determined the order I'll write about each of those chains yet). There are a lot more I'm considering writing about, as well(i.e. Famous Barr, Stix, Baer, and Fuller(yep those 3 words are the full name of that department store chain), L. S. Ayres, Hudson's, etc.). I'm not sure of the order I'll do those chains(and many more store chains I haven't mentioned), but I hope to cover them all at least sometime in 2012.

Shopping center and mall entries will start either in late December, or (more likely) sometime in early 2012. Thank you for your patience during this time.

welcome to Venture Into Retailing!

Yes, this is the official first post of the official Venture Into Retailing: Midwest Retail blog, and I'll be doing many more from here on out. This of course will be about past and present retail-related stuff, malls, shopping centers, defunct chains, retail chains that merged, etc. throughout the Midwest, and I'll also accept Northern Plains stuff too, including if it's in the western part of any of those states). I first considered this idea about a year or 2 ago, and even came up with this name, but really laziness was the only reason I had not gotten around to getting this blog up, till now.

Ultimately, I'd like to have decent coverage of all Midwest and Northern Plains states(North Dakota to Kansas), but I know they'll be some states that I probably won't get to for a great while(namely the Plains states), and/or cities(i.e. Des Plaines, Omaha, Fort Wayne, etc.) I wouldn't mind visiting down the road. Because of that reason, I will do some occasional guest writer/submission entries about malls and shopping centers in states I may have difficulty getting to in the immediate future(i.e. the western parts of Iowa and Minnesota, most of Missouri, etc). If you have a Midwest shopping center or mall that you are particularly interested in doing a guest entry for(yes it can be any mall/shopping center you want, as long as it's in the Midwest or Northern Plains. THINK like how a guest entry on the retail blog LiveMalls usually looks like, though I'll probably accept them too if they are just in the style of an email to deadmalls.com), email me at ventureintoretailing@gmail.com

That said, I will be doing a lot more stuff here soon. Stay tuned, and feel free to follow this blog if you want.