The newly enlarged company began to grow aggressively with its Broadway stores expanding south to San Diego in 1961 and east to Phoenix, Arizona, in 1968.

Also in 1969, Broadway-Hale acquired the then 3-unit Neiman Marcus specialty department store, based in Dallas, Texas,[12][13] and the Walden Book Co. (known more commonly as Waldenbooks)[14] and began to actively grow those businesses, nationwide.

In 1972, Prentis Hale retired as chairman, Edward Carter assumed the chairmanship and Philip M. Hawley (who started as a women's sportswear buyer in 1958) became company president.

In 1974, in a news release it states, CHH stated that to reflect the executives' contributions, the corporate parent was adopting the name Carter Hawley Hale Stores, Inc.[15] The new name was a major tongue twister, and stock analysts sometimes called it "Ego, Inc."[citation needed] The Wall Street Journal reported in 1984 that some critics accused Carter and Hawley on being on an "ego trip".

[20] After attempting an ill-fated, unsuccessful hostile takeover of Marshall Field in 1977,[21][22][23][24] the company acquired the venerable but tattered John Wanamaker's of Philadelphia for $60 million (cash) in April 1978.

[33] Faced with continuing poor results, and two hostile takeover attempts by The Limited in 1984[34] and 1986,[35] the company, still led by Phillip M. Hawley, reacted by first selling Waldenbooks to Kmart in 1984,[36] Holt Renfrew to the Weston Family in April 1986,[37][38] Wanamaker's to A. Alfred Taubman's Woodward & Lothrop in January 1987[39] and then splitting off the desirable specialty store business as Neiman-Marcus Group, Inc. (encompassing the Neiman-Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman and Contempo Casuals stores).

[41] From its heights in 1984 as the sixth-largest department store chain firm in the United States, CHH fell into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1991.

[42][43] Besides the financial problems of surviving the 1980s era of hostile takeovers, the main California department store business had faltered because of increasing competition from Nordstrom.

In 1992, after one and one-half years of bankruptcy negotiations, financier Sam Zell and his Zell/Chilmark Fund completed the reorganization of the newly renamed Broadway Stores, Inc., taking a 75 percent stake.

The final blow came on August 8, 1995, when the firm's lenders announced they would not advance the company any additional funds - which were needed to pay suppliers for new, as well as existing inventory.

[58] On September 28, 2006, Emporium-Capwell's Market Street flagship was redeveloped to house another Bloomingdale's location as well as an expansion of the adjoining shopping center Westfield San Francisco Centre.

[59] In addition, the one-time CHH Corporate Offices in the former Superior Oil Company Building at 550 South Flower Street in Los Angeles, right next door to The California Club (of which Carter and Hawley were members), were converted into a three-star boutique hotel called "The Standard.

[61][62] This company kept the two brands separate and had opened many Emporium and Capwell stores respectively throughout the San Francisco Bay Area prior to its acquisition by Broadway-Hale in 1970.