Krauss – The New Orleans Value Store

Krauss – The New Orleans Value Store

Krauss – The New Orleans Value Store pre-order

The book is available for pre-order on Amazon.com. We’ll update this page as release date approaches.

The Back Cover

For almost one hundred years, generations of New Orleans shoppers flocked to Krauss. The Canal Street store was hailed for its vast merchandise selection and quality customer service. In its early days, it sold lace and fabric to the ladies of the notorious red-light district of Storyville. The store’s renowned lunch counter, Eddie’s at Krauss, served Eddie Baquet’s authentic New Orleans cuisine to customers and celebrities such as Julia Child. Although the beloved store finally closed its doors in 1997, Krauss is still fondly remembered as a retail haven. With vintage photographs, interviews with store insiders and a wealth of research, historian Edward J. Branley brings the story of New Orleans’ Creole department store back to life.

About the book

This project began last year, talking to folks at The History Press. 2017 is the twentieth anniversary of the closing of Krauss Department Store. The store opened in 1903, so its operations spanned almost the entire 20th Century. Krauss – The New Orleans Value Store is a wonderful trip through the neighborhoods of New Orleans, the people who came to Canal Street to shop, and the merchants who sold them so many different things.

Krauss Department Store happened because a local merchant, Leon Fellman, took a chance on expanding retail on Canal Street. Prior to Krauss, stores on the city’s main street didn’t go past the upper boundary of the French Quarter, Rampart Street. Fellman bought up the 1200 block of Canal, built a store there, then leased it to the Krauss Brothers, who opened “a veritable trade palace” that lasted almost a century. The stories that come from Fellman’s original plan are wonderful and oh-so New Orleans.