S. H. Kress & Co.
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S. H. Kress & Co. was the trading name of a chain of "five and dime" retail department stores in the United States, which operated from 1896 to 1981. The subsidiary chain in Puerto Rico survived the parent company and is still in business there; see Tiendas Kress 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.
In 1964 ownership of Kress was acquired by Genesco, 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.
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