Department Stores

I was listening to Cullen talking on the phone to his friend of Pakistan and I started to wonder if department stores have been phased out by stores like Target and Walmart. They had to do some kind of report about the guy who invented the first department store but Cullen's friend didn't know what one was, or why we call it that.

I started naming stores, Lord and Taylor, Hechts, etc. but became convinced that there weren't any left. I know Hechts was recently purchased by a larger company. Maybe it's just that I remember all the stores that don't exist anymore but am not doing so well with the ones that are.

Didn't Montgomery Wards go away? Sears vanished from the mall they were in. Is Penneys still around? Is that how you spell it?

I finally came up with Neiman Marcus but Cul's friend had never been there. There must be some middle ground between an expensive store like that and a cheap store like Walmart. Not that I think of Walmart as a department store, I'm just wondering where the middle ground is or if it's all been eroded away.