“In 1894, an ambitious young man named George Romanta Kinney revolutionized footwear retailing by offering popularly priced shoes to working Americans.
At the age of 17 in 1883, George left his widowed mother and his sister behind in Candor and went to work in Binghamton, New York, for Stone, Goff and Company, a large manufacturer and wholesaler of boots and shoes. Business was “dull,” he wrote his family in 1885, and in that year he moved to the Lestershire Boot and Shoe Manufacturing Company, then the largest footwear manufacturer in upstate New York. During his ten years as a clerk at the “Lester Shoe Company,” as it was commonly know, Kinney acquired a thorough knowledge of the shoe business, helped support his family back in Candor, and paid off his father’s debts.
This ambitious young man, George Romanta Kinney went on to revolutionize footwear retailing by offering popularly priced shoes to working Americans. His developmental concept of superb service to customers, a commitment to local communities, the best footwear for the price, ample opportunities and rewards for all employees, and a fierce dedication to entrepreneurship remained a steady corporate-wide goal through the years.”
Unfortunately, On September 16, 1998, after nearly 104 year of success, “Venator Group (Woolworth renamed) announced: “Kinney and Footquarters To Close Its Operations: The Company announced today that it is exiting its Specialty Footwear operations including 467 Kinney Shoe stores and 103 Footquarters stores.” Kinney Shoe Corporation would no longer serve as the Great American Shoe Store.” For more info on Kinney visit r-rwebdisgn.com. For now check out this 1986 ad from Kinney below.
