[1] The company was founded by a young Bavarian Jewish immigrant, Adam Gimbel, who opened a general store in Vincennes, Indiana.

[2][3] After a brief stay in Danville, Illinois, Gimbel relocated in 1887 to Milwaukee, Wisconsin,[2] which was then a boomtown heavily populated by German immigrants.

In 1894, Gimbels—then led by the founder's son, Isaac Gimbel—acquired the Granville Haines store (originally built and operated by Cooper and Conard) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and in 1910, opened another branch in New York City.

[2] With its arrival in New York, Gimbels prospered, and soon became the primary rival to the leading Herald Square retailer, Macy's, whose flagship store was located a block north.

"[4] Gimbels became so successful that in 1922 the chain went public, offering shares on the New York Stock Exchange (though the family retained a controlling interest).

Gimbel did increase the number of more upscale (and enormously profitable) Saks Fifth Avenue stores in the 1930s, opening branches in Chicago, Boston and San Francisco.

Keeping the store plain and less extravagant than some of its competitors, Gimbels used the slogan "the customer pays for fancy frills.

[10] Gimbels Department Store offered a variety of merchandise and products, including home appliances, outdoor equipment, furniture, clothing, and much more.

Despite its limited presence, Gimbels was well-known nationwide, in part because of the carefully cultivated rivalry with Macy's, but also thanks to an endless stream of publicity.

The New York store received considerable attention as the site of the 1939–1940 sale of art and antiquities from the William Randolph Hearst collection.

When Gimbels ceased operating in 1986, television station WPVI assumed responsibility for the parade, with sponsorship by Reading, Pennsylvania–based Boscov's.

Designed by architect Daniel Burnham, the structure, which once offered 27 acres (110,000 m2) of sales space, has since been modernized and entirely revamped.

When this building opened, on September 29, 1910, a major selling point was its many doors leading to the Herald Square New York City Subway station.

Due to such easy access, by the time Gimbels closed in 1986, this store had the highest rate of "shrinkage", or shoplifting losses, in the world.

[18] The Philadelphia flagship opened in 1893 when the Gimbel brothers bought the bankrupt Haines and Company dry goods store at Ninth and Market Streets.

[19] In Pittsburgh, Starrett & van Vleck designed the downtown flagship of the Gimbels Department Store, which was built in 1914 at 339 Sixth Avenue.

After Gimbels ceased operations in the late 1980s, the building sat vacant for several years and was redeveloped in the 1990s for retail, home to, among other shops, the first Barnes & Noble to open in Pittsburgh.