How it started
History
JC Whitney began in 1915 as The Warshawsky Company, a scrap metal yard on the South Side of Chicago. The company's founder was Lithuanian immigrant Israel Warshawsky. Throughout World War I, Warshawsky bought failed auto manufacturers and added new parts to his inventory. The Warshawsky Company continued to grow, even during the Great Depression. The company closed its Chicago store and opened a new location in LaSalle, Illinois, in 1997.
In 1934, Israel's son Roy joined his father at the company after graduating from the University of Chicago. Roy proposed expanding from the Chicago area with a nationwide catalog and placed an ad in Popular Mechanics for sixty dollars. The ad offered readers a "giant auto parts catalog" for 25¢. Response to the ad was huge.
Roy took charge after his father's death in 1943. He continued to grow the business through World War II, always developing new strategies in response to changing customer needs. Roy retired in 1991.
On June 26, 2002, The Riverside Company acquired JC Whitney. In 2007, The Riverside Company created Whitney Automotive Group, which owned other companies such as CarParts.com, StylinTrucks.com, and AllBikeSupershop.com. On August 17, 2010, JCWhitney (along with the rest of Whitney Automotive Group) was acquired by U.S. Auto Parts for $27.5 million.
In July 2020, JC Whitney was merged into CarParts.com. JC Whitney will also launch a new line of accessories for Jeep and truck owners on its new website.
From Wikipedia’s article on JC Whitney, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2