"One of the greatest department stores in the West was the creation of a man who used to exhibit an educated pig in a travelling circus."

From a 1901 edition of Ainslee’s Magazine:

“The department store is an evolution of the dry goods store, which exists no longer as an ambitious retail business. One of the greatest department stores in the West was the creation of a man who used to exhibit an educated pig in a travelling circus. When his estate was probated it was appraised at $15,000,000. This man opened a small dry goods store in Chicago and annexed one business after another in his neighborhood until he owned what some declare was the first department store in America. However that may be, the idea is older in England and France.”