S. H. Kress & Co.

for more detail.

The business was started in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania, by Samuel H. Kress in 1896. "Kress Stores" were long a familiar sight in most cities and towns of the United States.

In the 1920s and 1930s Kress sold a house label of phonograph records under the "Romeo Records" trademark.

The Kress chain was known for the fine architecture of the stores, with a number of locations being hailed by architects for their design. A number of former Kress stores, now put to other uses, are ranked as landmarks. Some of the most well-known Kress locations included New York City's Fifth Avenue, Canal Street, New Orleans, and one at Hollywood's Hollywood Boulevard. The one at Hollywood Boulevard is now preserved at a theme park in Florida. The architect for many of these landmark structures was Seymour Burrell (he was also architect of the St. Germain Lofts, formerly the Kress store in Houston, TX; Seymour Burrell was S. H. Kress & Co.'s Corporate Architect and had studied architecture in New York with Franco-American architect Emmanuel Louis Masqueray.

The Kress Foundation, a philanthropic organization promoting art, was established in 1929 and also survives the parent company.

, Inc. The company abandoned its center-city stores and moved to the shopping malls. Genesco began liquidating Kress and closing down the Kress stores in 1980.

In June of 2008, a Kress IGA Supermarket opened in the basement of the S. H. Kress & Co. Department store located at 1423 Third Avenue in downtown Seattle, WA.

In July of 2008, The Kress Hollywood nightclub and restaurant opened in the 1930s-built Kress building located at 6608 Hollywood Blvd. This former Kress store had also served as the flagship Frederick's of Hollywood boutique for 59 years.

Other Kress buildings around the country have seen a resurgence of reuse, most notably the Kress building in downtown Fort Worth, Texas, shown bottom left. This historic building, built in 1936, was which was purchased from its previous owner in 2008 by Nortex Realty of Wichita Falls, TX, and made available for residential and office leasing. The stunning renovations performed on the building can be seen in the photos and virtual tours posted at [http://ftworthkress.com/ the building's website] . The Kress building in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, site of that city's first civil rights sit-in, was scheduled to be demolished but was spared and is now being [http://www.225batonrouge.com/news/2008/aug/28/salvation-stories/ renovated] .

References

* [http://www.kressfoundation.org/ Kress Foundation]
* [http://www.kressiga.com/ Kress IGA Seattle]