Abandoned Kinney Shoe Store: Are Any Left in Michigan?

Who remembers Kinney Shoes?
Who was dragged into the shoe store by your mom to get a pair of dress shoes that you didn't want...'cuz you'd rather have sneakers instead?

ME...I was one.

One of the places I was yanked into was Kinney Shoes...and I haven't heard of them since. What happened? Where did they go? Not that I wanted to go buy shoes there, but because that name just hit me – a name I forgot about for a few decades – and wondered what happened to 'em.

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I don't care what Michigan city you frequented...there was probably a Kinney Shoe store there, usually in the malls. Lansing, Jackson, Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Battle Creek...oh yeah, and a little village called Detroit.

The G.R. Kinney Company lasted from 1894 until September 1998. George Romanta Kinney, at 28 years old, purchased an outlet in Waverly, New York and began selling shoes that were reasonably priced; in other words, affordable to those who didn't have much money.

Kinney Shoes became the largest shoe retailer in the United States in 1936, with 335 stores spread out across the country.

In 1963, Kinney sold out to Woolworth's and renamed the Kinney Shoe Corporation, continuing until 1998 when all 467 Kinney stores were closed. The little brother store, Foot Locker, continues to this day since it began in 1974.

So the answer to the original question, NO, there are no more Kinney Shoe stores left in Michigan...or anywhere in the U.S. All we have left are the beat-up pairs our moms bought for us, and old commercials on Youtube.

Or, check out the image gallery below, which includes images of an abandoned Kinney shoe store.