Tag Archives: Belknap Bluegrass

Belknap, Dept. 2, ca. 1969

Belknap Hardware was a department store similar to Sears Roebuck or Montgomery Ward, founded in Louisville, Kentucky in 1840 and in operation until 1986. This catalog is a sub-catalog for their offerings in Department 2, those being primarily lawn mowers, garden hose, grinding wheels, scythes and related tools, rakes, and shovels, with some equine equipment for good measure. Belknap’s “Bluegrass” line of tools was famed for their often elaborate decoration, and were made for them under contract with major manufacturers rather than being a manufacturer themselves.

This post was facilitated by use of an overhead document scanner, as the dimensions of the catalog were too large for a conventional flatbed. Crooked pages are the result of the difficulty in working with a document of this volume and speed taking a priority over precision, as some pages refused to lay flat in spite of the scanner’s automated software removing distortion from curved pages.

A .pdf of this document can be found here.