Mammoth Mart

Mammoth Mart

Former type	Discount store
Industry	Retail
Founded	1956
Defunct	1978 location = Framingham, Massachusetts
Products	Clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, electronics, toys and housewares.
Website	None

Mammoth Mart was a discount department store chain, located in the northeastern United States, primarily in the New England area. The chain was founded by Max Coffman in Framingham, Massachusetts in 1956, and was something of a prototype for the large, downscale department store, selling housewares, hardware and clothing in stark, unfussy buildings, usually in suburban shopping center locations. Other discount department store retailers like K-Mart, Zayre, and Bradlees would subsequently expand on this concept.

Their advertising mascot was Marty the elephant, a smiling, blazer-wearing mammoth.

By 1969 the chain had 35 stores, though they filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter XI of the Bankruptcy Act of 1898--one of the precursors (along with Chapter X of the 1898 Bankruptcy Act) of today's Chapter 11--in 1974. The chain was acquired by now-defunct King's Department Stores in 1978.

Locations(partial list):

• Bristol, Connecticut (Route 6), now Shop Rite
• Guilford, Connecticut (Route 1), now Wal-Mart
• North Haven, Connecticut (Middletown Avenue/Quinnipiac Avenue), later Mars Dept. Stores, now Covideon Factory
• Putnam, Connecticut (Route 44), site torn down and redeveloped as Wal-Mart
• Brunswick, Maine (Old Bath Road), now home to BIW-related administrative offices
• Presque Isle, Maine
• Rockland, Maine (Route 1), later a King's, then an Ames; currently a Walmart.
• Scarborough, Maine (Route 1), currently being redeveloped for MaineHealth, the nonprofit parent of Maine Medical Center.
• Bel Air, Maryland (store became Kings, then Ames) it is now a Gardiners furniture store.
• Lexington Park, Maryland (St. Mary's Square), now a Rose's
• Lowell,Massachusetts (211 Plain Street Later the location of Stuart's Department Stores
• Waldorf, Maryland (Shoppers World)
• Dudley, Massachusetts, (Dudley Plaza, Airport Road,) later a King's.
• Canton, Massachusetts (Tri-Town Mall, at Cobbs Corner), later a King's
• Fairhaven, Massachusetts
• Franklin, Massachusetts (Route 140 - East Central Street, Horace Mann Plaza), now Bob's Store
• Marlborough, Massachusetts, Boston Post Road (Route 20)
• New Bedford, Massachusetts (Kings Highway Plaza), later a King's, THB Home Center, Ames and presently AJ Wright
• Holyoke, Massachusetts (U.S. Rt. 5)
• Raynham, Massachusetts (Rt. 44?), later a King's
• Salisbury, Massachusetts (Rte. 110, Crossroads Plaza)
• Detroit, Michigan (Old Federal Department Store at SW corner of Grand River and Greenfield)
• Somersworth, New Hampshire (Tri-City Plaza), now home to a craft store
• Plaistow, New Hampshire
• Henderson, North Carolina (US1 Business North), later became King's, now Roses Store
• Hickory, North Carolina (NC-127 North)
• Statesville, North Carolina, turned into Kmart, now Fred's
• Newport, Vermont, later an Ames store
• Woonsocket, Rhode Island, later became Kings
• Bennington, Vermont, later became Kings, now Walmart
• Brattleboro, Vermont, (Putney Rd in the Brattleboro North shopping plaza. Became Kings, then Ames.
• Kingston, New York, Route 9W (Mammoth Mall, now King's Mall)