McCrory

J.G. McCrory's or McCrory Stores was a chain of five and dime stores based in York, Pennsylvania. Their stores typically sold shoes, clothing, housewares, fabrics, penny candy, toys, cosmetics, and often possessed a lunch counter or snack bar.

John Graham McCrorey opened his first store in Scottdale, Pennsylvania, in 1882. By 1885, the chain had five stores in the Pennsylvania. Born with the last name "McCrorey", the owner legally changed his name, dropping the e, to save money by not paying the cost of the extra letter in store signs. One of the early investors was Sebastian Spering Kresge, who later founded the S.S. Kresge chain, which became Kmart. In 1899, Kresge traded his interest in the McCrory's Memphis store for McCrory's interest in the Detroit, Michigan store, giving him control there.

At its height, McCrory's operated 1,300 stores under its own name as well as TG&Y, McLellan (merged in 1958), H.L. Green, G.C. Murphy and J.J. Newberry which it had acquired through the years. McCrory's parent Rapid-American also owned Lerner Stores and National Shirt (acquired by McCrory's in 1960). The chain filed for bankruptcy in 1992 and by the end of 1997 the once-proud chain was down to 160 stores. In the late 1990s, it converted some stores to the Dollar Zone format of dollar store, but these ultimately closed as well in 2001.