J. W. Knapp Company Metal Business Card Holder

One size / gray / Glossy

$24.99

1/6

J. W. Knapp Company Metal Business Card Holder

$24.99

	One size
Width, in	3.67
Height, in	2.35
Depth, in	0.36

GhostCorp Apparel - resurrecting iconic corporate ghosts.

Keep business cards close with a nod to J. W. Knapp Company, the Lansing retailer whose story spans generations of Michigan shopping. Founded as Jewett & Knapp in Albion in 1893, the business relocated to Lansing and took the Knapp name in 1908. Its downtown store at 300 South Washington became a city-block landmark, followed by branches serving area shoppers. This card holder makes a distinctive desk accessory for local history enthusiasts, former Knapp's customers, and department-store memorabilia collectors.

J. W. Knapp & Co., commonly known as Knapp's, was a department store chain based in Lansing, Michigan, serving mid-Michigan. In 1893, Joseph W. Knapp, a salesman from Hillsdale, opened a dry-goods, coat, and carpet store in Albion with Frank W. Jewett under the name Jewett & Knapp. By 1897, the store had moved to North Washington Avenue in Lansing. In 1908, Jewett and Knapp sold the business to Frank Lackey, who renamed it J. W. Knapp Company; Knapp continued to manage operations. The store moved that year to South Washington Street. A new downtown building at 300 South Washington opened in 1939, on the former Hotel Downey site, and the store grew to occupy a city block by the 1940s. In the 1950s, the company was sold to the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, alongside other mid-Michigan department store businesses. Knapp's added an East Lansing branch, then a Meridian Mall store in Okemos in 1969. Lansing Mall and Westwood Mall locations acquired from Wurzburg's followed in 1972. L.S. Good Co. bought the Mott Foundation divisions in 1970 and declared bankruptcy in 1980. The mall stores were sold to JCPenney; the downtown store had already closed. Its building later became office and mixed-use space.