James G. Sterchi

James G. Sterchi
Sterchi, photographed circa 1913 by Knaffl and Brakebill
Born	(1867-06-23)June 23, 1867 Knox County, Tennessee, USA
Died	December 9, 1932(1932-12-09) (aged 65) Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
Resting place	Greenwood Cemetery, Knoxville
Occupation	Businessman
Spouse(s)	Bertha Karns
Children	James Gilbert Sterchi, Jr.
Parent(s)	John Louis Augustus Sterchi and Parthena Tunnell

James Gilbert Sterchi (June 23, 1867 – December 9, 1932) was an American businessman, best known as the cofounder and head of the furniture wholesaler, Sterchi Brothers Furniture Company. At its height, Sterchi Brothers was the world's largest furniture store chain, with sixty-five stores across the southeastern United States and a worldwide customer base. In 1946, the company became the first Knoxville-based firm to be listed on the . The company's ten-story headquarters, now called Sterchi Lofts, stands prominently along Knoxville's skyline, and Sterchi's home in northern Knoxville, Stratford Mansion, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Sterchi (pronounced STUR-kee) was born on the farm of his grandfather, Swiss immigrant Francois Sterchi, in 1867. Francois Sterchi had been a commissioner and archivist for the Canton of Vaud, but had fled to the United States in the late 1840s following political upheaval. Like many of Knoxville's Swiss immigrants, the Sterchis initially settled in Wartburg, atop the Cumberland Plateau, in 1848. Disappointed with the Plateau's poor soil, however, the Sterchis moved to the Beaver Creek Valley in north Knox County, where they established a farm called "Bellefontaine." Francois, trained as a civil engineer, helped survey Gay Street in Knoxville in the early 1850s.

As a teenager, James Sterchi worked as a clerk for the glassware firm, Cullen and Newman. In 1888, he and his brothers, J. C. Sterchi and W. H. Sterchi, founded the Sterchi Brothers Furniture Company, with just $800 in initial capital. The company found a thriving market among Knoxville's growing middle and working classes, and began to expand. In 1896, Sterchi Brothers bought out furniture catalogue wholesaler King, Oates and Company, giving them access to a regional market.

The Sterchi Brothers warehouse, initially located on Gay Street's 300-block, burned along with several other buildings in the so-called "Million Dollar Fire" on April 7, 1897. The company then built a new warehouse, known as "The Emporium," which still stands on Gay Street's 100-block. Author James Agee, in his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, A Death in the Family, recalled the "great bright lights" of the "Sterchi's" sign while walking along Gay Street with his father in 1915. The company's ten-story headquarters at 114 Gay Street, now a loft apartment building called "Sterchi Lofts," was built in 1921.