Paquet / La Compagnie Paquet Ltée. 🅿︎
Zéphirin Paquet
Founded: 1850
Defunct: 1981

La Compagnie Paquet Limitée was one of the most important French Canadian businesses in Quebec. Its founder, Zéphirin Paquet, was born into a family of modest means. He showed that he had good business sense when he established a company that would become a family institution and last over 130 years.The first Paquet store was founded in 1850 and was located on Saint-Vallier Street in the lower town in Québec. In 1892, Paquet had two main divisions, retail and wholesale, the latter consisting of a fur-processing plant. The establishment of the wholesale division represented a major expansion, but it was the mail-order service and the catalogues (each division published its own) that made the store's name and reputation known outside Quebec. The store was very sucessful and several more were opened in others areas. After more than 100 years it began to become difficult for the company to keep up. In 1981, a strike broke out. La Compagnie Paquet Limitée, which was considered Québec's leading trading house was forced to cease its activities. It closed its doors in June of that year.