Oshman's Sporting Goods Inc. was a sporting goods retailer in the United States. Its headquarters was in East End, Houston, Texas.[1][2] It operated traditional sporting goods stores and Oshman's Supersports USA megastores.
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In 1919 Jake Oshman opened a store, Oshman's Dry Goods, in Richmond, Texas. In 1930 he moved to Houston by buying the stock of a bankrupted dry goods store in that city. While he liquidated the inventory of the Richmond store, he observed that sporting goods were the fastest selling items. In 1931 he opened the first Oshman's Sporting Goods location.[3] The company Oshman's Sporting Goods, Inc. incorporated in 1946.[1] Oshman died in 1965. By that year Oshman;'s was Texas's largest sporting goods chain.[3]
In the 1970s Oshman's was expanding in the Los Angeles area.[4]
In 1978 Oshman's purchased the rights to the trade name of Abercrombie and Fitch from First National Bank of Chicago. As of October 31, 1987 the company operated 185 traditional stores, one Super Sports USA store, and 27 Abercrombie and Fitch stores. Around December 25 that year it stopped its proposed $50 million sale (of which $20 million could be in banknotes) of the stores to an investor group in New Jersey.[5]
By the mid-1980s the chain had over 200 stores in the U.S. Sun Belt.[3]
In 1993 the company stated that it planned to close 33 stores.[6]
In 2001 Gart Sports Company announced that it would buy Oshman's for a combination of cash and stock valued around $82 million.[7] In June of that year it merged into GSC Acquisition Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of Gart.[1]
In 1991 the company stated that it would consolidate the offices of its California and Texas divisions into its headquarters in Houston. The company said that the competitive conditions of the retailing industry and the slowing economy prompted its move.[8]