By 2005, Hecht's had some 81 stores in 19 markets in Maryland, the District of Columbia, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

The Hecht family was Jewish and came from the little village of Langenschwarz (now part of Burghaun), Kreis Hünfeld, Hesse, Germany where Sam was born on December 10, 1830.

Meyer's widow Hannah or Hanne Miriam (née Bachrach) was probably born in Hesse, Germany in 1789 or 1790.

She left Germany with Sam and his brother Reuben and immigrated to the United States; they arrived in Baltimore, Maryland, on December 15, 1847, on the ship Schiller.

Ettel or Edel) had arrived in Baltimore on the ship Albert on July 31, 1845, which departed from Bremen, Germany.

Sam Hecht, Jr. became an itinerant peddler selling his goods in and around Baltimore and on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay.

In 1857 Sam Hecht, Jr. opened a used furniture store on Aliceanna Street (near South Broadway) in Baltimore, Maryland.

By 1870 this venture had moved to a more auspicious location at 519 South Broadway where the name 'HECHT'S RELIABLE STORES' could be seen carved in foot-high letters into the granite cornice above the third floor (now demolished).

Over the front of the new store on Lexington Street was a sign reading 'Samuel Hecht, Jr. & Sons,' reflecting the development of the firm as a family enterprise.

[3] Hecht's operated the last local department store in downtown Washington, in a structure at the corner of 12th and G Streets NW built in 1985 and renovated in 2003.

[6] After World War II, Hecht Company began to build new stores in the suburbs around Baltimore and Washington.

Outside the center of Baltimore, Hecht's opened a store in Northwood in September 1954, followed by another in Edmondson Village in October 1956, and a third in the then-new Reisterstown Road Plaza in January 1962.

In 1947, they opened a large three-story department store in Silver Spring, Maryland, just north of Washington, D.C.

Theodore R. McKeldin ceremonially opened the third suburban D.C. Hecht Company store at Prince George's Plaza in Hyattsville.

J. Millard Tawes did the honors on August 29, 1960, when he opened the fourth suburban D.C. location, the 168,000-square-foot (15,600 m2) store at Marlow Heights Shopping Center.

[14] When May took over ten Hess's stores, based in Allentown, Pennsylvania, three of them re-opened as Hecht's and the others were operated by corporate siblings Kaufmann's and Filene's.

In the Nashville area, Hecht's took over selected former Castner Knott stores, which had been purchased from East Tennessee–based Proffitt's in 2001.