() 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.
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 . Expansion in the 1960s let to the company's new name Jo-Ann Fabrics.
In
1969 , Jo-Ann Fabrics became a publicly held corporation trading on the American Stock Exchange under the name of 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.
In
1998 , the acquired , 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.
