Cat's Meow Village

Current Contact Information
Address	2163 Great Trails Dr.
City, State, Zip	Wooster, Ohio 44691
Phone	Phone: (330) 264-1377
Contact Person	Firstname Enter Lastname here
Contact Title	Owner
Last updated	2018-12

Cat's Meow Village

Type	Giftwares; Gift, Novelty & Souvenir Stores
Industry	Retail; Manufacturing
Fate	Active
Headquarters	Wooster, Ohio, United States
Number of locations	2163 Great Trails Dr., Wooster, Ohio

Locations

• 2163 Great Trails Dr., Wooster, Ohio 44691

Comprehensive History

In 1982, Faline Fry Jones established her business producing The Cat's Meow Village buildings and accessories. Each Cat's Meow house or building is around 6" tall, made of wood, and painted to represent famous structures as well as imaginary ones, and each features a small black cat, modeled after her cat Casper. Jones took the first hand-painted house to Rosanne Burger at A Country Tradition, who placed the first order and helped promote the craft. The Cat's Meow Village quickly expanded and worked with Jeff Miller at Archwood, who cut and sanded the wood for the houses and later rented a portion of the facility to The Cat's Meow to keep both operations on the same premises.

By 1984, the business had grown so much that Jones had to hire additional employees and even began taking on screen printing jobs such as making real estate signs and printed t-shirts. Jones renamed the company to FJ Designs at this time, and as her business expanded, Archwood lost space in the shared facility on Nold Avenue. In 1985, Archwood moved into a separate location on East Liberty Street, and in 1986, FJ Designs grew out of their existing space and relocated to a building on Bowman Street with three and a half times the space.

Timeline

• 1982: Faline Fry Jones sells first Cat's Meow Village building
• 1983: Jones joins forces with Archwood, rents space in their facility
• 1984: Business name changed to FJ Designs
• 1985: Archwood relocates business to East Liberty, FJ Designs claims entire building
• 1986: FJ Designs relocates to larger facility on Bowman Street
• 1987: FJ Designs begins Home Workers Program to allow staff to complete some work at home
• 1988: Decision made to retire a Village Series after five years of production
• 1988: Groundbreaking at Great Trails Drive site for new facility to bring Archwood and FJ Designs back together

What Links Here

• Creston Historical Library Memorabilia ‎ (← links)
• Newspaper ad:Page 1 of Dalton Gazette,published in Dalton, Ohio on Wednesday, February 9th, 2000 (2) - February 27 2023 ‎ (← links)