[PNW Timmy]It's Nordstrom, not Nordstrom's. [/span] They did in fact start in Seattle, and at first sold only shoes. I have a vague and possibly-faulty memory of shopping for shoes there as a little kid when it was only a shoe store. They also used to give you a "Nordy" balloon with your shoe purchase. Now they give kids a regular-shaped balloon with a Nordy-shaped rubber weight on the string.
This eBay listing shows what Nordy looked like back in the day.
tm
