At 220,000-square-feet, Scheels is the Star Lotulelei of the neighborhood. All of a sudden the Costco warehouse next door, at a mere 165,000, seems small. The Home Depot up the street, 150,000 square feet, is just another kid on the block.
It's not the biggest stand-alone retail store in Utah. That would be IKEA, the Swedish furniture giant. At 310,000 square feet.
Scheels hasn't always been big. The whole thing began in 1902 with a chain of one in the small town of Sabin on the western edge of Minnesota. Frederick A. Scheel, a German immigrant, opened a hardware and general merchandise store there because he was tired of farming. The business proved popular enough that over time it spread out and added more and more stores. Deseret News
