GRAPHIC 1908 BELKNAP HARDWARE & MFG CO. LETTERHEAD LOUISVILLE KENTUCKY

Description: GRAPHIC 1908 BELKNAP HARDWARE & MFG CO. LETTERHEAD LOUISVILLE KENTUCKY. BELKNAP-BLUE GRASS ITEMS HAVE BECOME VERY COLLECTIBLE. ORIGINALBELKNAP WAS ONE OF THE GREAT OLD LINE HARDWARE WHOLESALER. AT ONE POINT WAS THE LARGEST IN THE COUNTRY. KNOWN FOR THEIR BLUEGRASS AND JOHN PRIMBLE KNIFE BRANDS ESTABLISHED 1840, CLOSED IN 1986 GENERAL OFFICE: #1-2 WASHINGTON ST.RICHARD JAMES: SECRETARYWILLIAM BELKNAP, PRESIDENTVP: MORRIS BELKNAPHARRY PERKINS: TREASURERSOLD TO R H NORRIS HARDWARE, CHILDRESS TEXAS SEE MY STORE: VINTAGE HARDWARE STORE COLLECTIBLES Origins of the BELKNAP The company's founder William Burke Belknap (1811?1884) was born in Brimfield, Massachusetts the son of Morris Burke Belknap the elder (1780?1877) and Phoebe Locke Thompson Belknap (1788?1873) and is not to be confused with William Burke Belknap the younger (1885?1965) or William Burke Belknap, Jr. The elder William Burke Belknap started the company on the banks of the Ohio River in 1840. His father Morris Burke Belknap the elde had earlier developed iron foundries and other related businesses in Massachusetts which influenced his son's founding of the Belknap Hardware and Manufacturing Company. Morris Burke Belknap (1856?1910), also known as Morris B. Belknap or Col. Morris Belknap, was a vice president of Belknap Hardware. and was married to Lily Buckner., the daughter of Simon Bolivar Buckner. Belknap Hardware's fame spread and the company was represented at the 8th Annual Convention of the Panhandle Hardware and Implement Association in Amarillo, Texas. The Belknaps figured prominently in the history of the Pendennis Club of Louisville, the first club house of which, in 1848, was a former Belknap family mansion. After 50 years, Belknap Hardware was acclaimed in the Atlanta Constitution as one of the South's great industries. By its 100th anniversary in 1940, Belknap Hardware had grown to a landmark complex of 37 buildings, covering 37 acres of floor space under one roof. The building had a network of underground passageways and covered bridges. The warehouse space alone at 129-133 N. Second Street (a building which no longer exists) was eight stories tall. The company at height of its long success] The company became one of the nation's largest wholesale enterprises with nationally known quality brands, among which Blue Grass was the most readily recognizable. John Primble knives, developed by an employee of the company, became a Belknap brand with its own division, made in Louisville between 1947 and 1985 by the John Primble Belknap Hardware Co. The Crusader manufacturing brand of Belknap included contractors' shovels, hammers, hatchets, axes, drawing knives, carpenters' pincers, planes, screw drivers, hand drills, wrecking bars, bit braces, auger bits, chisels, pliers, wrenches, tin snips, and tin ceilings. Other popular Belknap manufactured products included rifles, guns, padlocks, lawn mowers, and bicycles. Belknap inventory in the vast warehouse spaces grew larger and larger, and the Belknap neon sign could be seen from miles away. The company's demise The company was founded by Belknaps and managed predominantly by members of the Belknap family and their chosen successors until its demise in 1986 when, after over 140 years, it faced bankruptcy and was sold. Terrence Gallaher, editor-in-chief of Hardware Age said, "In the late '70's, Belknap's Board of Directors came to include a number of outsiders, men who weren't also company officers . . . . The new board saw an opportunity to appoint someone from outside as president. Up to that time, Belknap promoted top officers from within, and virtually all the men in top management had begun their careers on the road, carrying a catalog." The closing of Belknap has been called a tragedy of errors. As early as 1909, the hardware company management sued a newspaper which incorrectly announced that Belknap Hardware was bankrupt. The company was also known as W. B. Belknap from 1840 to 1860, W. B. Belknap & Co. from 1860 to 1880, W. B. Belknap and Co. Inc. from 1880 to 1907, and Belknap Hardware & Mfg. Co. from 1907 to 1986. The company had not yet gone out of business, but the stockholders the day before approved the change of the name, reasoning that since no abbreviations of firm names were permitted under the new U.S. Fair Packaging and Labeling Act, the full name of the company would be hard to inscribe on small tools. The company's proxy statement explained that Belknap had not "conducted any manufacturing operation for many years," and that it carried much merchandise that was not hardware. Although not a manufacturer at that time, Belknap was still distributing items made for it "by other manufacturers under at least nine Belknap trade names." In 1923, the Belknap Hardware and Manufacturing Building was built at 101-23 East Main Street in Louisville's General Business District on the site of the second Galt House. It was designed by the architectural firm of Graham, Anderson, Probst, and White of Chicago and at the time it was "the largest single-unit hardware plant in the world. . . .". For a while the building was the location of the Presbyterian denomination's National Headquarters and is now known as the Waterside Building and is occupied by the Humana Corp. ORIGINAL, LETTERHEADS, BILLHEAD, BILLHEADS, HARDWARE.

Price: 5.49 USD

Location: Dallas, Texas

End Time: 2025-02-01T19:18:55.000Z

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