JOUDAT J. KATIBA FAMILY PAPERS

RG5350

SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE

An undated photo of the interior of Katiba's Grocery.
Joe Katiba is at the far left in a suit
(click on the image to see a larger version) 

Joudat J. "Joe" Katiba (1903-1973) was a Syrian immigrant who settled in central Florida, first in Ocala and then in Lakeland.  He opened Katiba' s Cash Grocery and Market at 826 North Florida Avenue in Lakeland in 1932.  The store quickly became a fixture on the Lakeland landscape.  Not content with just selling groceries, Katiba bought a nearby hardware store and expanded his business.  Katiba renamed the business Katiba's Grocery and Hardware to reflect his expanded product line.

The store gained a reputation under Katiba as a place where shoppers could get whatever they needed, from lettuce to lawn mowers, and Katiba knew exactly where to find those obscure items that no other store stocked.  Joe Katiba died in 1973 and his daughter, Louise Williams, continued to operate the store, by then known as Katiba Hardware. The store moved to a new location on U. S. 98 North in 1982 and finally closed in 1989.

The Katiba Family Papers were donated to the Special Collections unit of the Lakeland Public Library in 1989 by Katiba's daughter, Louise Williams.  The materials donated to the library did not include any of the business records from Katiba's Grocery/Hardware.  Three photographs, two of the store's interior and one of the exterior, constitute the sum total of materials in the collection which relate to the store. 

The bulk of the records in the collection concern family real estate transactions and include deeds, mortgages, and promissory notes relating to parcels of real estate owned by Katiba or the Katiba Holding Company.  Other types of records include Katiba's petition for naturalization as a United States citizen, his certificate of naturalization, correspondence, photographs and contracts.