The man that started it all was Sebastian Speringe Kresge. He was born in Pennsylvania on 31 Jul 1867 to Sebastian Kresge and Catherine Kunkle. He was married three times, first to Anna Harvey (1879-1947) in 1897, this marriage ended in divorce, Sebastian married a second time to Doris Mabel Mercer (1899-1963), in 1924, this marriage also ended in divorce. His third wife was Clara K. Zith (1894-1981). Sebastian had five children with his first wife, none with the second or third. Sebastian died 18 Oct 1966, at the age of 99 years at East Stroudsburg, PA and is buried in Salem Church Cemetery in Gilbert, Monroe County, PA.


At one time Sebastian worked as a clerk in a hardware store and also was a traveling salesman. He started out in 1899 with two five-and-ten cent stores with Charles J. Wilson.
After his company had grown to 85 stores, he incorportated them into the S. S. Kresge company in 1912. By the late 1990's there were over 2300 Kmart stores in the United States. In Jan. 2002, Kmart Corp. had filed bankruptcy and started to close stores. In 2005 Kmart and Sears merged together, trying to save both companies, but the merger didn't seem to help, stores continued to close, with less than 100 left in 2019. The Kmart pictured in the banner at the top of this page was one of the last Kmart stores to close in Oakland County, Michigan, it was located at 5100 Dixie Hwy., Waterford , the store closed at the end of Feb. 2020.


Kresge first appeared in the City of Pontiac 1928-29, the postcard image on the left is from 1930, before the store expanded futher down Saginaw St., taking up Chase's and the store next to them. The image on the left is from Google Maps, taken about 2009, the building is still there in 2020, and remains part of McLaren Hospital.



Pontiac had couple more Kresge stores other than the one located in downtown Pontiac. One was located in the Tel Huron Shopping Mall, located at Telegraph Rd. and Huron Rd. The other was located inside of the Pontiac Mall, located at Telegraph Rd. and Elizabeth Lake Rd., just over a half mile north of the Tel Huron location.
List of SS Kresge Stores in Oakland County, Michigan