Steketee's was a

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...

based in

Grand Rapids, Michigan Grand Rapids is a city and county seat of Kent County in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 198,917 which ranks it as the second most-populated city in the state after Detroit. Grand Rapids is the ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. It was begun in 1862 in Grand Rapids, and soon grew to several stores throughout southwestern

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

. After a purchase by the

Dunlaps Dunlaps, based in Fort Worth, Texas, USA, was a family-owned chain of department stores in the central and southern United States catering to most classes depending on the location. The chain operated under the trade names of Dunlaps, Stripling & ...

company of

Fort Worth, Texas Fort Worth is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Texas and the 13th-largest city in the United States. It is the county seat of Tarrant County, covering nearly into four other counties: Denton, Johnson, Parker, and Wise. Accord ...

in the early 1990s, the stores were gradually closed, with the last store closing in 2003.

History

Paul Steketee, a

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

immigrant, came to Grand Rapids in 1850. In 1862 Steketee and John H. Doornich formed a dry goods operation that would become one of

West Michigan West Michigan and Western Michigan are terms for an arbitrary region in the U.S. state of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. Most narrowly it refers to the Grand Rapids- Muskegon-Holland area, and more broadly to most of the region along the Lower Pe ...

's oldest retailers."Last Steketee’s to close its doors"
The two ran the store for 10 years before a fire devastated the business. Following the fire, Doornich sold out to Steketee, who brought his family on board to help run and rebuild the operation. With the growth of Grand Rapids, the family decided to build a larger 8-story flagship store on Monroe Avenue, the city's retail hub. The store opened with much fanfare in 1915. The draw of Steketee's Grand Rapids store was big enough that the family decided to expand its operations in the 1950s, opening its first satellite store in 1958.

Sale and demise

In 1991,

, a

department store company, bought out the Steketee's family, bringing the West Michigan operations under their umbrella of brands. After being bought by a Texan company, Steketee's downtown Grand Rapids store and its other locations were affected by changes in retail patterns and the rise of national brands. The Steketee store at

Maple Hill Mall ''Acer'' () is a genus of trees and shrubs commonly known as maples. The genus is placed in the family Sapindaceae.Stevens, P. F. (2001 onwards). Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. Version 9, June 2008 nd more or less continuously updated since ht ...

in Kalamazoo closed in 2003.’02: More churn for retail industry
The downtown store closed in 1998. Dunlap's shuttered its last Steketee's store in 2003 with the closing of the Westshore Mall location. The vacant downtown Grand Haven Steketee's building has been adapted as th
Tri-Cities Historical Museum

References

{{reflist Companies based in Grand Rapids, Michigan Defunct department stores based in Michigan Retail companies established in 1862 Retail companies disestablished in 2003 Defunct companies based in Michigan 1862 establishments in Michigan