I booked a tiny, private roomette for $500 on my trip from New York City to Miami and reserved a $1,000 bedroom accommodation, the next step up after a roomette, on my way back. 

The bedrooms are at least 45.5 square feet, which, for reference, is a little bigger than a standard king-size bed. They can sleep up to two adults.

As someone who deals with travel anxiety, I found 30 hours on a train to be overwhelming, especially since, at the time, I had only taken one other overnight train. The constant motion of the train didn't help, either. In fact, I ended up feeling a little queasy.

But staying in a bedroom made me feel more comfortable than staying in a roomette, a cheaper accommodation that's about half the size. I thought the bedroom offered ample space to stretch out and move about, which made all the difference to me.

I think I could comfortably do a 30-hour train journey again, as long as I book a bedroom. And to make it more affordable, I'd book with a friend to split the cost and have some company next time. 

I arrived at Miami Amtrak Station at 11 a.m., 50 minutes before my train was scheduled to depart. The building's interior reminded me of a Greyhound bus station.

I sat in the only waiting area I could find until it was time to board.

For double the price of a roomette, the accommodation I booked for my previous train trip, the bedroom accommodation also offered double the space.

Right away, I knew this trip would be more pleasant than my ride to Miami since I had more room to stretch out. 

The table reminded me of storage hacks I'd expect to find in a tiny home. I used it to hold my laptop while working and appreciated that I could simply fold it out of the way when it was time to relax. 

Beneath the sink, there was a trash can and a place to hold tissues. 

To the right of the mirror was a cabinet where I could store my toiletries and other personal items. This feature allowed me to unpack a little, the way I would in a hotel room. Placing my toiletries on the cabinet shelves made me feel more at home.

I didn't use the closet, but I think it would have come in handy for storing jackets if I were traveling at a cooler time of the year.

On the bathroom door were hooks to hold towels and clothing items. On a shelf above the toilet were two towels for drying yourself off after a shower.

I appreciated that the toilet was separated from the rest of the room by a door, and I think this is a great amenity if you're traveling with others.

I could also adjust the volume of the overhead speaker, through which train stops were announced, which I found particularly helpful.

This came in handy when I wanted to get off the train for a minute and stretch my legs. Thanks to the overhead speaker volume control, I always knew when the next stop would be and how long we had at each station.

The bedroom also had handy controls for night, reading, and ceiling lights.

I tried to make the train feel like home, and at home, I take dance breaks throughout the day.

Shutting the curtains gave me a moment of privacy to just be my goofy self. This helped me keep moving, too, which I found to be essential for surviving a 30-hour train ride.

Having room to stretch out made me feel more relaxed throughout my journey. I appreciated that the couch was long enough to lie down on.

Thanks to all the work I had to do, the first chunk of my trip home went by pretty quickly. 

I decided to lie down on my belly and look outside the window for a bit.

During my trip home, I saw forests, towns, and factories outside my window. This made me think about how traveling by train gives you a railroad view of the country that can't be replicated in a car or on a flight.

My meals came with the ticket, and I could pick from five items. Since I enjoyed the braised beef short rib dish on my trip to Miami, I decided to get it again on my way home. 

Since I have an electric toothbrush, it was nice to be able to charge it using the outlets in the bathroom. 

My first thought when I entered the room again after receiving bedside service was that the bed looked bigger than the one I slept in on my way to Miami in a roomette.

The bed and sheets were comfortable, and I was happy to have more room to sleep.

I was able to use the foldout table for my bedside belongings, though.

There might have been outlets on the other side of the bed, too, but I wasn't able to find them. 

I thought I'd stay up and watch TV for a while, but my body was telling me to just pass out.

So I decided to lie down and watch "The Office" until I drifted off to sleep.

The ride was bumpy through the night, but being on the lower bed felt grounding, and I didn't feel as if I was going to fall off the bed at any point. Although it wasn't a perfect night's sleep, I definitely slept better than I did in the roomette.

I woke up to the sun peering through my window feeling somewhat rested. 

I was excited to take a shower after having been on the train for nearly 24 hours, but the shower appeared too grimy to feel comfortable, and I wished I packed flip-flops.

Amtrak did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, but according to its website, it sanitizes rooms between visitors.

I usually wear flip-flops in public showers to avoid collecting germs.

Since I forgot them, I decided that not showering would be better.

While I was washing my face, I noticed how nice it was to have three mirrors next to one another. It was easy to see the spots I missed after washing the soap off my face. 

For breakfast, I went to the dining car and got the continental option. For lunch, I decided to try a different entrée from the braised beef short ribs I had the night before.

I chose a chicken fettuccine dish with broccoli and sun-dried tomatoes, and I thought it was decent. 

The breakfast included a sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich, oatmeal, Greek yogurt, and a blueberry muffin. I had the choice of maple and brown sugar or apple cinnamon for the oatmeal.

This meal was the most filling I had on the whole trip, and if they served it all day, I'd probably have it for every meal.

To pass the time, I looked at my phone and played Nintendo while relaxing on the bed. 

It was a Saturday, so staying in bed felt right.

I think because my bed was gone and I thought the journey's end should be near, the final hours of my train ride felt as though they dragged on.

When we arrived in New York around 7 p.m., slightly later than scheduled, I realized I had never been more grateful to be home.

But I was also appreciative of the room and privacy I had getting there. 

When he was 9 months old, Larry came down with pneumonia, Vanity Fair reported. His mom sent him to Chicago to live with his aunt and uncle, Lillian and Louis Ellison.

Vanity Fair reported that Louis, his adoptive father, was a Russian immigrant who took the name "Ellison" in tribute to the place in which he entered the US: Ellis Island.

Ellison went to high school in Chicago's South Side before attending the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. When his adoptive mother died during his second year at college, Ellison dropped out. He tried college again later at the University of Chicago but dropped out again after only one semester, Vanity Fair reported.

He made the trip from Chicago to California in a flashy turquoise Thunderbird that he thought would make an impression in his new life, Vanity Fair reported.

Ellison bounced around from job to job, including stints at companies like Wells Fargo and the mainframe manufacturer Amdahl. Along the way, he learned computer and programming skills.

The company started with $2,000 of funding.

Ellison and company were inspired by IBM computer scientist Edgar F. Codd's theories for a so-called relational database — a way for computer systems to store and access information, Britannican said. Nowadays, they're taken for granted, but in the '70s, they were a revolutionary idea.

In 1979, the company renamed itself Relational Software Inc., and in 1982, it formally became Oracle Systems Corp., after its flagship product.

As one of the key drivers of the growing computer industry, Oracle grew fast. The company is responsible for providing the databases in which businesses track information that is crucial to their operations.

Ellison became a billionaire at age 49. Now, he has a net worth of roughly $152 billion, according to Forbes, after racking up $50 billion in gains thanks to Oracle and Tesla stock. That makes him the seventh-richest person in the world.

Oracle reported a loss of $36 million in September 1990 after admitting that it had miscalculated its revenue earlier that year, The New York Times reported.

It didn't get the decade off to a great start. After adjusting for that error, Oracle was said to be close to bankruptcy. At the same time, rivals like Sybase were eating away at Oracle's market share.

It took a few years, but by 1992, Ellison and Oracle managed to right the course with new employees and the popular Oracle7 database.

For much of the '90s, he and Oracle were locked in a public-relations battle with the competitor Informix, which went so far as to place a "Dinosaur Crossing" billboard outside Oracle's Silicon Valley offices at one point, Fortune reported in 1997.

With Ellison as Oracle's major shareholder, his millions kept rolling in. He started to indulge in some expensive hobbies — including yacht racing. That's Ellison at the helm during a 1995 race.

He also partly financed the BMW Oracle USA sailing team, which won the America's Cup in 2010, according to Bloomberg.

In 1999, Ellison's protégé, Marc Benioff, left Oracle to work on a new startup called Salesforce.com. Ellison was an early investor, putting $2 million into his friend's new venture.

When Benioff found out that Ellison had Oracle working on a direct competitor to Salesforce's product, he tried to force his mentor to quit Salesforce's board. Instead, Ellison forced Benioff to fire him — meaning Ellison kept his shares in Salesforce.

Given that Salesforce is now a $267 billion company, Ellison personally profits even when his competitors do well. It has led to a love-hate relationship between the two executives that continues to this day, with the two taking shots at each other in the press.

All of those new dot-com companies needed databases, and Oracle was there to sell them. Although investors lost out in the dot-com crash, Oracle came out of it stronger due to its acquisitions and the demand for software solutions.

In 2005, for example, Oracle snapped up the HR software provider PeopleSoft for $10.3 billion.

And in 2010, Oracle completed its acquisition of Sun Microsystems, a server company that started at about the same time as Oracle, in 1982. That acquisition gave Oracle lots of key technology, including control over the popular MySQL database.

Ellison has expensive taste. Over the years he's built up an impressive collection of Richard Mille watches, an expert previously told BI. The timepieces start in the six-figure range and can go for over $1 million in some cases.

In 2009, the billionaire purchased the Indian Wells tennis tournament for a reported $100 million, The Los Angeles Times reported.

By signing the pledge, Ellison promised to donate 95% of his fortune before he dies. And in May 2016, Ellison donated $200 million to a cancer treatment center at the University of Southern California, Forbes reported.

Ellison hired Hurd, a former CEO of HP, in 2010, Inc reported. Catz has made a reputation for herself among analysts for what they describe as brilliant business strategy.

Ellison founded a startup called Sensei in 2016 that does hydroponic farming and owns a wellness retreat on Lanai.

He also purchased Hawaiian budget airline Island Air in 2014, before selling a controlling interest in the airline two years later after it struggled financially.

Ellison handed control over to Hurd and Catz, who became co-CEOs. Ellison now serves as the company's chairman and chief technology officer. Following Hurd's death in 2019, Catz became the sole CEO.

Back in 1998, Ellison had made a $125 million investment in ex-Oracle exec Evan Goldberg's startup business-management software firm, NetSuite. It ended up working out well for Ellison when NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson negotiated the sale of the company to Oracle for $9.3 billion, netting Ellison a cool $3.5 billion in cash for his stake.

NetSuite investor T. Rowe Price tried to block the deal, citing Ellison's conflict of interest, but the sale closed in November 2016.

Ellison has held shares in some of the most recognizable companies, one of which was the infamous blood-testing company Theranos, founded by Elizabeth Holmes. It had a promising future until its flaws were exposed and Holmes received a prison sentence.

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple as CEO back in 1997, he asked Ellison to sit on the board. Ellison served for a while, but felt that he couldn't devote the time and left in 2002, according to Forbes. Compensation for his role was an option to buy about 70,000 shares, which would've amounted to about $1 million at the time of his departure.

Ellison reportedly owns the Astor Beechwood Mansion in Newport, Rhode Island, and a home in Malibu. Ellison also has houses in Palm Beach, Florida and more in a multibillion-dollar real-estate portfolio.

His daughter, Megan, is an Oscar-nominated film producer and the founder of Annapurna Pictures. The company has produced films like "Zero Dark Thirty" and "American Hustle."

Ellison's son, David, is also in the film business. His company, Skydance Media, has produced movies like "Terminator: Dark Fate" and films in the "Mission: Impossible" franchise.

After months of discussions in 2024, Skydance Media and Paramount agreed to a deal, creating "New Paramount," which David will be CEO of. He has plans to "improve profitability, foster stability and independence for creators, and enable more investment in faster growing digital platforms," the companies said.

Ellison said publicly that he supported Trump and wants him to do well, and hosted a Trump fundraiser at his Rancho Mirage home in February, though he did not attend, Forbes reported. The fundraiser caused an outcry among Oracle employees, who started a petition asking senior Oracle leadership to stand up to Ellison.

Catz, the CEO of Oracle, also had close ties to the Trump administration, having served on Trump's transition team. 

Ellison and Trump remained close during Trump's time in office and reportedly spoke on the phone about possible coronavirus treatments. Trump also supported Oracle's bid to buy TikTok, calling Oracle a "great company."

Earlier in 2018, Ellison described Tesla CEO Elon Musk as a "close friend," and defended him from critics. When Musk acquired Twitter — now X — in 2022, Ellison offered to invest $1 billion.

Musk went on to help Ellison reset his forgotten password, biographer Walter Isaacson wrote.

The announcement came after Oracle decided to move its headquarters to Austin, leading Oracle employees to ask Ellison if he planned to move to Texas too.

"The answer is no," Ellison wrote in a company-wide email. "I've moved to the state of Hawaii and I'll be using the power of Zoom to work from the island of Lanai."

He signed the email: "Mahalo, Larry."

In a proxy filing in June 2022, the electric vehicle maker revealed that Ellison would be leaving the board. Since then, he and Musk have appeared to maintain their close relationship.

Oracle's shares continued to hit records, CNBC reported. The company proved that it's not going any where any time soon.

Oracle joined other tech giants, like Salesforce, in backing the tech startup in June 2023. It began offering generative AI to its clients based on tech made by Cohere.

"Cohere and Oracle are working together to make it very, very easy for enterprise customers to train their own specialized large language models while protecting the privacy of their training data," Ellison previously said.

Despite its big move to Austin only four years ago, Ellison said that Oracle is planning to move its world headquarters to Nashville, Tennessee.

In April 2024, the exec announced that Oracle has plans for a "huge campus" in Nashville that will one day serve as the software giant's world headquarters. The company relocated from the San Francisco area to Austin, Texas in 2020.

"It's the center of the industry we're most concerned about, which is the healthcare industry," Ellison said at the Oracle Health Summit in Nashville, CNBC reported.

Oracle's cloud applications business saw its shares spike by 13% in June 2024 after the company posted strong annual earnings due to demand for generative AI, Fortune reported. Ellison, who now serves as Oracle's CTO and owns about 40% of the company's cloud sector, got a $14 billion boost to his fortune.

The company also announced a partnership with AI startup Cohere, enabling its enterprise customers to build their own generative AI apps. "Cohere and Oracle are working together to make it very, very easy for enterprise customers to train their own specialized large language models while protecting the privacy of their training data," Ellison said during the company's earnings call.

Ellison is set to become the controlling shareholder of Paramount following its merger with Skydance Media, a company founded by his son, David Ellison.

Pinnacle Media, Larry Ellison's investment firm, will acquire 77.5% of the voting interest currently held by Shari Redstone, according to a filing with the Federal Communications Commission. This move effectively transfers control of Paramount from Redstone to Ellison.

While David Ellison has been named Paramount's new CEO and may retain some autonomy in the role, the FCC filing reveals that his father will hold ultimate authority as the primary shareholder and will likely retain significant decision-making power, Brian Quinn, a Boston College Law School professor, told the New York Times.

The deal, valued at $8 billion, includes major assets like CBS and MTV. RedBird Capital Partners, a private-equity firm backing Skydance, will acquire some voting rights, but Larry Ellison will retain the largest stake. He plays a sizable role in the entertainment industry, including cameos in movies such as "Iron Man 2" and through the financial backing of his children's ventures, including his daughter Megan Ellison's Annapurna Pictures. 

Matt Weinberger and Taylor Nicole Rogers contributed to an earlier version of this story.

Correction: May 7, 2024 — An earlier version of this story misstated Larry Ellison's role at Oracle. He's the chief technology officer, not the CEO.

Ellison has been divorced four times. The 80-year-old billionaire is now reportedly remarried to a 33-year-old named Keren Zhu, The Wall Street Journal reported in December.

The University of Michigan football team flipped Bryce Underwood, the top high school quarterback in the country, from Louisiana State, thanks to a donation and support from Ellison, according to WSJ. While Ellison had no previously known connection to the school, his wife Zhu is an alum. Both Ellison and Zhu showed up in a Zoom call with Underwood and Michigan football's general manager to help recruit him, the report said. 

Despite an 8% decline in Oracle's stock this month following a weaker-than-expected earnings report, the company's shares are still at some of their highest levels since the 1990s, boosted by cloud partnerships with Google, OpenAI, and Meta.

Ellison's net worth has increased by $67.3 billion this year, bringing his net worth to about $190 billion as of Monday, according to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index.

As he grew his retail empire, Walton, an experienced pilot, would often fly in unannounced to check in on a particular store location.

Together, they had four children: Rob, John, Jim, and Alice.

Source: Fortune

Source: Fortune

He retired from Walmart's board at the end of his term in 2024.

The group purchased the NFL team for a $4.65 billion in summer 2022 in a record-breaking sale at the time.

He was 58 years old.

Source: Business Insider

Source: Fortune

Source: Curbed and Ranch Marketing Associates

Source: Curbed

Source: Bloomberg

Source: Fortune

Source: The New Yorker

Source: The Observer

Source: Star-Telegram

Source: WilliamsTrew

The modest, three-bedroom, two-bathroom home overlooks the Brazos River.

Source: Business Insider

Source: Business Insider

Source: Walton Family Foundation

Source: Walton Family Foundation

Source: Walton Family Foundation

Source: SEC filings

Buffett loves playing bridge, sometimes playing for over 8 hours a week, the Washington Post reported. He also likes to hit the green for some golf, spends a great deal of his time reading, and loves to play the ukulele — he said in 2020 that he has a collection of 22 ukuleles. He's played the ukulele since he was young and used his skills to court his first wife Susan, their son Peter once told NPR.

Buffett once bought and donated 17 Hilo ukuleles to the North Omaha branch of the nonprofit Girls Inc, and showed up at the group's building to give a group lesson.

The vast majority of Buffett's net worth is tied to Berkshire Hathaway, his publicly traded conglomerate that owns businesses like GEICO and See's Candies and holds multibillion-dollar stakes in companies including Apple and Coca-Cola.

Buffett owns about 15% of Berkshire — a stake worth close to $150 billion.

Berkshire Hathaway itself has assets worth more than $1 trillion.

The CEO of Berkshire Hathaway began building his wealth by investing in the stock market at age 11 and first filed a tax return when he was 13.

As a teenager, he was raking in about $175 a month by delivering The Washington Post — more than his teachers (and most adults). Berkshire Hathaway later owned nearly 30% of the newspaper for 40 years until shedding the stake in 2014.

He also sold calendars, used golf balls, and stamps. He had amassed the equivalent of $53,000 by the time he was just 16.

The vast majority of Buffett's wealth was earned after his 50th birthday. His salary at Berkshire Hathaway last year was just $100,000, the same as it's been the last 40 years, and he reimbursed the company $50,000 in part to cover his personal calls and postage.

The company spent triple Buffett's yearly salary — $313,595 — on his personal and home security last year, according to the company's 2023 proxy statement.

Buffett's greatest investment mistake is said to be a Sinclair gas station that he bought in 1951 at the age of 21 — he bought a stake in the station with a friend, and the business was consistently outsold by the larger Texaco station opposite it.

He eventually lost the $2,000 he invested out of his total net wealth of $10,000 at the time, Yahoo Finance reported, referencing Glen Arnold's book "The Deals of Warren Buffett, Volume 1: The First $100M."

Buffett married his first wife, Susan Buffett, in 1952. Together they had three children: Susie, Howard, and Peter. Though he and Susan remained married until Susan's death in 2004, they had lived apart since the 1970s. He married his second wife and longtime companion, Astrid Menks, in 2006.

When Susie was born, Buffett apparently turned a dresser drawer into a bassinet for her to sleep in, according to Roger Lowenstein's 2008 biography of the billionaire. For his second child, Howard, he borrowed a crib.

Despite his multibillionaire status, Buffett has long lived a relatively modest and frugal lifestyle. He previously told CNBC and Yahoo Finance's "Off the Cuff" that he's "never had any great desire to have multiple houses and all kinds of things and multiple cars."

Buffett lives in a modest home in Omaha, Nebraska, which he once called the "third-best investment" he's ever made in a letter to Berkshire shareholders.

He bought the home for $31,500 in 1958 — adjusted for inflation, that's about $342,000. It's now worth an estimated $1.4 million, according to Zillow, and spans 6,280 square feet with five bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms.

Buffett has made some security upgrades since buying it and it's now guarded by fences and security cameras.

In 1971, Buffett purchased a vacation home in Laguna Beach, California, for $150,000. Part of a gated community called Emerald Bay, the house has six bedrooms, is walking distance from the beach, and was renovated after Buffett bought it. 

He initially put it on the market in early 2017 for $11 million, then cut the price to $3 million later that year. It sold in October 2018 for $7.5 million, after almost two years on the market. 

Unlike many other ultra-wealthy individuals, Buffett has long driven a fairly modest set of wheels.

He previously drove a 2001 Lincoln Town Car with a license plate that read "THRIFTY" for about a decade, before auctioning it off for charity and replacing it with a 2006 Cadillac DTS. In 2014, he replaced the DTS with a Cadillac XTS, according to Forbes.

"The truth is, I only drive about 3,500 miles a year so I will buy a new car very infrequently," Buffett once told the outlet.

One splurge Buffett has made is on a private jet. Buffett spent $850,000 on a used Falcon 20 jet in 1986, then sold the first jet and upgraded to a different used jet in 1989, spending $6.7 million.

He and his late business partner Charlie Munger nicknamed the second jet "The Indefensible," Buffett revealed in a letter to shareholders.

Despite the fact that Berkshire Hathaway is a major Apple shareholder, Buffett didn't upgrade to a smartphone until 2020.

Before that he preferred the Samsung SCH-U320.

Though Buffett did switch to an iPhone eventually, he told CNBC he just uses it "as a phone."

Buffett once said he has about 20 suits, all made in China by designer Madame Li.

He has a longstanding friendship with Li, an entrepreneur who worked her way up in the business. Buffett's gotten the same $18 hair cut for years from a barber shop in the same building as his office.

Buffett once told Fortune that he eats "like a six-year-old." He gets his breakfast at McDonald's almost every morning on the way to work.

In 2017, he was spending no more than $3.17 on his order, paying with exact change, he said in the HBO documentary "Becoming Warren Buffett." He also drinks at least five Cokes a day.

Buffett once went to McDonald's in Hong Kong with longtime friend Bill Gates and paid with coupons, Gates reminisced in his 2017 annual letter.

The letter reads: "Remember the laugh we had when we traveled together to Hong Kong and decided to get lunch at McDonald's? You offered to pay, dug into your pocket, and pulled out … coupons!"

Gates has described Buffett as a "thoughtful and kind" friend, and has said that every time he visits Omaha, Buffett drives to the airport to pick him up.

Warren Buffett is considered one of the world's most generous philanthropists. In 2006 he pledged to donate about 85% of his Berkshire Class A shares to five foundations: the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation (named after his late wife), and three foundations run by his three children.

He teamed up with Bill and Melinda Gates in 2010 to form The Giving Pledge, an initiative that asks the world's wealthiest people to dedicate the majority of their wealth to philanthropy. Buffett himself has pledged that 99% of his wealth will go to philanthropy during his lifetime or upon his death.

Buffett plans on leaving his kids $2 billion each, The Washington Post reported in 2014. He once said in a letter to shareholders that he recommends that super-wealthy families "leave the children enough so that they can do anything but not enough that they can do nothing."

"There are things money can't buy," Buffett once said at a shareholders' meeting. "I don't think standard of living equates with cost of living beyond a certain point. My life couldn't be happier. In fact, it'd be worse if I had six or eight houses. So, I have everything I need to have, and I don't need any more because it doesn't make a difference after a point."

In his 2025 letter to shareholders, Buffett urged the government to spend the tax Berkshire paid "wisely," adding: "Take care of the many who, for no fault of their own, get the short straws in life. They deserve better."

Hillary Howoffer, Taylor Nicole Rogers and Kylie Kirschner contributed to earlier versions of this story.

Blockbuster got its start in 1985, and acquired the Sound Warehouse and Music Plus music chains to create Blockbuster Music in 1992. The music division was sold to Wherehouse Entertainment in 1998 before closing for good, but there remains one single Blockbuster video rental store in Bend, Oregon.

Thom McAn was a chain of shoe stores that peaked in the 1960's and closed up shop by 1996. The brand's shoes continued to be available at Sears and Kmart.

First opened in 1894, Kinney Shoes had 467 stores at its peak, all of which shuttered in 1998.

Warner Bros. Studio Store competed with the Disney store until the company closed all of its locations in 2001.

Zany Brainy filed for bankruptcy in 2001 and closed all locations in 2003. The educational toy retailer's founder, David Schlessinger, co-founded the discount company Five Below.

Debt and poor sales forced Ames Department Store into bankruptcy twice., and in 2002, the remaining Ames stores closed.

Imaginarium was an educational toy store in the 1980s. Stores started closing in the 1990s, and by 2003, parent company Toys R Us closed all remaining locations.

Hecht's was purchased by Macy's in 2005 and all locations were either turned into Macy's stores or closed.

Federated Department Stores bought Marshall Fields in 2005 and converted the stores to the company's more recognizable flagship brand, Macy's.

Gadzooks was a teen clothing store that was around from 1983 to 2005. It filed for bankruptcy in its final year and was purchased by Forever 21, which then closed all of the stores.

In 2006, Macy's retired the Kaufmann's name, and the brand disappeared.

Tower Records couldn't keep up with the rise of digital music, and all stores in the US were closed in 2006.

Media Play was a big box store selling books, movies, software, toys and video games. It closed for good in 2006.

Discovery Channel's 103 stand-alone stores closed in 2007.

KB Toys announced it would be going out of business in 2008, and by early 2009 all locations were closed.

Sharper Image declared bankruptcy and wound down its physical retail operation in 2008.

Levitz Furniture declared bankruptcy twice — first in 1997, and then in 2005. It closed all of its stores in 2008.

Linens 'n Things had over 500 stores in 2006, but by the end of 2008, they were all closed.

Mervyn's once had almost 200 locations in the western US. In 2008, the company declared bankruptcy and closed all of its stores.

Limited Too's success began dwindling in the early 2000s, and all stores were eventually rebranded as Justice by 2008.

Tweeter filed for bankruptcy in 2008 and all of its stores were closed by the end of the year.

Circuit City filed for bankruptcy in 2008 and shuttered all stores the following Spring.

Steve & Barry's filed for bankruptcy in 2008 and closed all of its stores in 2009.

Filene's Basement's parent company went bankrupt in 2009, and by 2011 all of its stores were closed.

B. Dalton was acquired by Barnes & Noble in 1987, which officially closed the bookstore in January 2010, except for a single location in Oviedo, Florida.

Waldenbooks merged with Borders in 1994, and all Waldenbooks stores closed when Borders Group liquidated in 2011.

Borders Books & Music stores closed shortly after the company was forced to liquidate in 2011.

CompUSA started in 1984, but by 2007, Best Buy and other superstores had taken over, and the last CompUSA closed in 2012.

Sam Goody music stores suffered from the rise of digital media, and most Sam Goody stores were either ultimately shuttered or converted into other brands like FYE by 2012. Two locations remain: one in Clairsville, Ohio, and one in Medford, Oregon.

A&P filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2010 and again in 2015, closing its stores that year.

Competition drove Sports Authority into bankruptcy in 2016, when it closed all its stores and sold its website to Dick's Sporting Goods.

Sport Chalet, which first opened in 1959, abruptly closed all of its stores in 2016.

Wet Seal, a teen clothing store, filed for bankruptcy in 2015 and closed for good in 2017.

Virgin Megastores stopped operating in the US in 2017, but the brand continues online and in select international markets.

The Limited abruptly shut down all of its stores in 2017, and the brand is now sold exclusively through Belk.

Starbucks closed Teavana's 379 locations in 2018.

The Bon-Ton stores included its namesake brand, as well as Bergner's, Boston Store, Elder-Beerman, and Younkers.

Toys R Us and its subsidiaries closed in 2018, but in 2021 Macy's announced that it would open Toys R Us sections in hundreds of its stores, while Babies R Us is opening within Kohl's stores across the US.

After 123 years of business, luxury retailer Henri Bendel closed all of its stores in 2019.

Dress Barn shut down in 2019 after 50 years in business.

At its peak in 2009, Papyrus had 500 stores across the US and Canada, but the company ultimately filed for bankruptcy and closed its 254 stores in 2020.

Lord & Taylor filed for bankruptcy in 2020, leading to the closure of its 38 stores. An attempt at reviving the brand as a "digital collective" was unsuccessful.

Century 21 closed its 13 locations after going bankrupt in 2020. The company reopened its New York flagship store in 2023 with a greater focus on e-commerce.

After a slow decline and a tumultuous stint with private equity owners, Maine-based Olympia Sports shut down its remaining stores in 2022.

Bed Bath & Beyond filed for bankruptcy and closed its 896 remaining stores in 2023, though the brand was sold and relaunched online.

In October 2024, Beyond and Kirkland's Home announced a $25 million deal to open 15,000-square-foot small-format "neighborhood" Bed Bath & Beyond locations across the US. The companies said the concept would include an assortment of classic BB&B products.

The Dallas-based home goods company shut down all of its stores in 2023 after it had only planned to close half of its stores amid bankruptcy proceedings.

The Massachusetts-based seasonal specialty retailer filed for bankruptcy in 2023, winding down the remaining 72 locations across 20 states.

Just months after buying Moosejaw from Walmart, Dick's Sporting Goods closed most of the brand's locations and formed one team that would handle both the Public Lands and Moosejaw brands moving forward. Only three Moosejaw locations remain open.

Chicago-based Foxtrot abruptly shuttered its 33 locations in April 2024 after it came up $35 million short of its 2023 sales goal.

Teen apparel retailer rue21 — known for its presence in shopping malls — filed for bankruptcy for the third time in May 2024. The company's 540 locations also shut down.

The retailer had attempted multiple turnaround plans after a 2017 bankruptcy and 2023 bankruptcy filing.

Conn's HomePlus, a home goods retailer known throughout the South, filed for bankruptcy protection in July 2024 before announcing that it was shuttering all of its stores.

The chain operated more than 170 stores in 15 states.