It was the end of an ‘elegant era’ when Fehr Jewelry Store closed in downtown Manitowoc. The store, considered Wisconsin’s oldest jewelry store at the time, began in 1855 and closed its doors in 1988.

Gustave Karl Fehrs was born in the Prussian Province of Saxony in 1829. It was there that he learned the watchmaker profession and became quite talented in his field. Gustave and his wife, Emma, immigrated to the United States in the 1850s and settled in New York for a year before coming to Manitowoc around 1855. When the Fehrs family settled here, the community had only 1,900 citizens and G.K. Fehrs was the first to create a watch and jewelry store.