Stride Rite Corporation

Lexington is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 31,394 at the 2010 census. This town is famous for being the site of the first shot of the American Revolutionary War, in the Battle of Lexington on April 19, 1775. Lexington was first settled circa 1642 as... part of Cambridge, Massachusetts. What is now Lexington was then incorporated as a parish, called Cambridge Farms, in 1691. This allowed them to have a separate church and minister, but were still under jurisdiction of the Town of Cambridge. Lexington was incorporated as a separate town in 1713. It was then that it got the name Lexington. How it received its name is the subject of some controversy. Some people believe that it was named in honor of Lord Lexington, an English peer. Some, on the other hand, believe that it was named after Lexington in Nottinghamshire, England. In the early colonial days, Vine Brook, which runs through Lexington, Burlington, and Bedford, and then empties into the Shawsheen River, was a focal point of the farming and industry of the town.
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Payless ShoeSource is an American discount footwear retailer founded in Topeka, Kansas in 1956 by brothers Louis and Shaol Pozez that is owned by Collective Brands, Inc. In 1961, it became a public company as the Volume Shoe Corporation which merged with the May Department Stores Company in 1979. In the 1980s, Payless was widely known in the U.S. for its Pro Wings line of discount sneakers, which often had Velcro straps instead of laces. In... 1996, Payless ShoeSource became an independent publicly held company. In 2004, Payless ShoeSource announced it would exit the Parade chain and would close 100 Payless Shoe outlets. On August 17, 2007, the company acquired the Stride Rite Corporation and changed its name to Collective Brands, Inc. Collective Brands is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol PSS. It was announced on May 1, 2012 that the company would be purchased by Golden Gate Capital for US $1.32 billion. Circa 1962-63, Volume Shoe company purchased the original Hill Brothers Shoe Company based in Kansas City, Mo and converted approximately all 25 of their stores to the "Payless" name.
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