....Jordan Co. ( then known as the R. S. Jordan Company) was already well established as a residential and commercial supplier. The construction of the new, modern facilities at 110 N. Water St. in Elizabeth City, NC in the late 1940s was to accommodate the post-WWII boom in the appliance division. The appliance sales and service division was the direct descendent of the radio and small appliance shop started in the 1930s in nearby Hertford.
It's hard to comprehend in today's business environment, but ''dealerships'' --particularly appliance dealerships-- were an exclusive club. The manufacturers, many of them subsidiaries of major automobile industries, only granted dealership rights sparingly. This usually included strict territory requirements. These were the post-war days, after all, and pent-up consumer demand for appliances, home furnishings, and autos made it the classic ''sellers market''.
