Jeweler David W. Proffitt and James Ellis founded the Ellis-Proffitt Co. on Main Street in downtown Maryville, Tennessee, in 1919.

A location in Knoxville opened in 1972 in West Town Mall with an Oak Ridge store following in 1974.

[2] For the first 65 years of its existence, the company was a family-owned business, but in 1984 it was acquired by RBM Acquisition Co., led by R. Brad Martin.

[3] The West Town Mall location in Knoxville was expanded to 122,000 square feet (11,300 m2) later that year making it the largest store in the chain.

This added new stores in Rome, Georgia; Elizabethtown and Ashland, Kentucky; Bristol, Virginia; and Kingsport and Johnson City, Tennessee.

In fall 1992, shortly before the Hess's purchase was completed, a new Proffitt's store opened in The Mall at Johnson City in the company's entry into the Tri-Cities market.

A Parks-Belk location in Morristown, Tennessee was part of the deal, but the store was closed instead of being converted to a Proffitt's.

The Johnson City Proffitt's was already operating under the dual-location concept and this gave the company three stores in the same mall.

Birmingham, Alabama–based Parisian and Younkers of Des Moines, Iowa, were both acquired in 1996 and retained their names and operating units.

In the same year the company moved from the NASDAQ to the New York Stock Exchange and began trading under the PFT symbol.

The only exceptions were two Alabama McRae's stores in Tuscaloosa and Gadsden, which were retained to convert into Parisian locations.