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| Type | Public (NYSE: JAS) |
|---|---|
| Founded | Cleveland, Ohio (1943) |
| Headquarters | Hudson, Ohio, U.S. |
| Key people | Darrell Webb, Chairman of the Board, President and CEO [1] |
| Industry | Crafts and Fabrics |
| Website | www.joann.com |
Jo-Ann Stores Inc. (NYSE: JAS) is a specialty retailer of crafts and fabrics based in Hudson, Ohio, United States. It operates the retail chains Jo-Ann Fabrics and Jo-Ann Etc. The headquarters of the company is located in the former General Motors Terex plant.
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History
Beginnings
Jo-Ann Fabrics was founded in 1943 when Hilda and Berthold Reich, and their friends, Sigmund and Mathilda Rohrbach opened an imported cheese store in Cleveland, Ohio. Eventually they removed the cheese and added fabrics and opened the first Cleveland Fabric Shop. Expansion in the 1960s led to the company's new name Jo-Ann Fabrics.
Fabri-Centers of America Inc.
In 1999, Jo-Ann Fabrics became a publicly held corporation trading on the American Stock Exchange under the name of Fabri-Centers of America Inc. Through the 1970s Jo-Ann Fabrics opened stores in shopping malls, by the 1980s the company left most malls and added crafts and floral. In 1994, the company made its first acquisition of Cloth World, a 342-store southern-based company. At the time of the acquisition, Fabri-Centers operated 655 stores.
Jo-Ann Stores Inc.
In 1998, they acquired House of Fabrics, a rocky mountain-based company which also operated under the names of Fabricland and Fabric King. At that time Fabri-Centers renamed the company Jo-Ann Stores Inc. and converted all House of Fabrics, Fabricland, Fabric King, and Cloth World to simply Jo-Ann Fabrics. Today Jo-Ann Fabrics operates as a leading national specialty retailer of crafting, decorating, and sewing products superstores.
References
External links
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