WINONA, Minn. – The 29-store Rogan shoe store chain, which has a shop in Winona, has been sold for $45 million in cash. The buyer is the much larger Shoe Carnival chain, which said it would retain the Rogan name for existing stores at least for a time. Jack Rogan built is chain from a single shop in Racine, Wisconsin, beginning in1971. Today Rogan and a second generation of children have stores in Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin. In effect the Rogan stores sold for an average of $1.5 million.
Winona strip-mall site. At 985 East Highway 61, across from Fleet Farm and near East End McDonald’s.
Shoe Carnival profile
Chain retailer Shoe Carnival operates 377 stores in the the Midwest, South, and Southeast from a headquarters and a $40 million, 60,000-square foot distribution center in Evansville, Indiana. The founder, David Russell, began with a single store called Shoe Biz. Russell used loud circusy television ads with a carny barker to create an urgency to buy immediately because discounts were about expire. Confetti and neons dominate the decor. The company expanded rapidly through acquisitions and switched its name to Shoe Carnival with the carny barker theme. Annual sales passed $1 billion in 2016. The company claims to be on target to have 400 stores. The stock is publicly traded on the NASDAQ exchange.