The Fabian-Grunauer Co.

The original Fabian-Grunauer Co. started off as the P. Fabian Co. It was operated by Philip Fabian and Louis Levinsky on the corner of Central Avenue and Front Street (later renamed Sixth Street). It was one of the first businesses to move from Ellis to Tracy. The store also housed Tracy's first post office, and Fabian was the city's first postmaster. That original wooden structure was destroyed in the big fire of 1898.

A new store constructed of brick soon replaced the previous building. After Levinsky's death, Fabian partnered with his half-brother Abe Grunauer, and the business name was changed to the Fabian-Grunauer Co. The store sold a variety of general merchandise, including groceries, medicine, clothing, shoes, hardware, various household items, farming equipment and even automobiles. The shop became known as the Big Store.

In 1910, Abe Grunauer became Tracy's first mayor. The store closed up shop in 1926, and the building was torn down in 1985. The location has been a vacant dirt lot ever since.

Almost 100 years after the Big Store's closure, the Fabian-Grunauer Co. was resurrected, in name and spirit, as an online store specializing in T-shirts celebrating a bygone era in Tracy's history.

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Please note: The goal of the current incarnation of the Fabian-Grunauer Co. is to offer T-shirts celebrating and honoring events, locations and businesses of a bygone era in Tracy's history. If you have any suggestions for possible T-shirt designs, please reach out and let us know.

Likewise, if you are the owner of any names, logos or other intellectual property that is featured on any of our products and you wish for us to cease using it, please reach out to us. Our intention is not to steal other's property, but rather to better enable people to celebrate and honor what makes Tracy special to them.

Fabian.Grunauer.Co@gmail.com