Welcome to Bill’s History Corner. This is the place! Last fall (2019) Coppes needed to remove some large trees along Market Street. They were becoming dangerous, with large limbs beginning to fall in windstorms. I happened to be at Coppes Commons on the day the tree cutters came to remove the trees, so I thought someone should take some pictures to preserve a little part on the history of the company. This is the result of watching out of a 2nd floor window for ½ hour.

There have been rumors that the Coppes Inc. company installed kitchens in famous peoples’ homes. There are no actual (company) paper records of this. President Kennedy’s kitchen and Elvis were but two of the street legends. How do I go about confirming these rumors? I asked long-time employees and their answer was “sure I remember people talking about Elvis, I think he got a kitchen”. Is that enough proof? Or is that just reciting the legends?

Hello, and welcome to Bill’s History Corner. This is the place where I get the privilege of talking about the Napanee Dutch Kitchenets and the factory that made them.

This is the place where we discuss the history of the Coppes kitchen factory. As you know, if you have been following these posts, we have boxes of business receipts from the early 1900s. We are slowly going through them. Every piece of paper has a story. The latest box we are looking at contained several receipts from the FRANCKE HARDWARE COMPANY, 43 and 45 South Meridian Street, Indianapolis, IND.