Trapper Jon’s began in the home of its namesake, founder Jon “Trapper Jon” Carpenter. In 1985, in a shingled, weathered New Hampshire home tucked under tall pines, the Vietnam veteran and executive chef closed off his living room, hung an OPEN sign in the front window, and began arranging a lifelong obsession on his own shelves: kitchen cutlery, hunting blades, everyday-carry folders, tools for camp and countryside, classic Case slipjoints, and utility knives built for shop, site, and field. The world of knives is wide, and he worked to bring as much of it within reach as he could. He ordered from paper catalogs such as Blue Ridge Knives and Catoctin Cutlery, dog-earing pages and keeping a running list. Specs appeared as clean line drawings with callouts; when photos were included, they were simple black and white.

Neighbors became customers, customers became friends, and a shared language formed on his home counters: carbon and stainless, edge and grind, balance and fit. What started in a living room became a place you entered for a knife and left with a story.

The sign moved west in 2000, when the shop relocated to Sierra Vista, Arizona. but the hospitality didn’t change. One regular, a San Antonian named Carlos Lucio, kept making the trip because Jon made steel feel personal. It wasn’t just inventory; it was a conversation. Carlos will tell you it was the best knife shop he’d ever been to– the kind that teaches you the difference between “good” and “right for you.”

Away from the counter, Carlos built a two-decade career in architectural visualization. He spent eleven years as Director of Visualization at Marmon Mok Architecture, leading renderings for large civic, healthcare, and educational projects across Texas and beyond, and eleven years teaching architectural modeling at the University of the Incarnate Word in the 3D Animation and Video Game Design program. That blend of studio and classroom honed a precise eye for proportion, materials, and period style, sharpening his sense of the way eras live in form and material, instincts he now brings to curating steel. Over time, visits to Jon’s shop gave that eye a new canvas; what he learned to read in buildings he began to read in knives, in the dialogue of steels, grinds, and silhouettes. When Jon signaled he was ready to retire, Carlos stepped from renderings to steel and committed to the counter.

When Jon was ready to retire, Carlos asked to carry the light forward. In 2023 he acquired the store and its full inventory; in 2024, Trapper Jon’s reopened in San Antonio with the same quiet promises and a new skyline. Today the shop feels both familiar and new: thoughtfully organized displays, an expanded roster of trusted brands including Spyderco, Benchmade, Microtech, Chaves, and Flytanium, a small lounge for unhurried conversations, and regular events that make learning part of the visit.. Prices still span from ten-dollar utility to heirloom and collector pieces, organized so beginners, EDC fans, cooks, hunters, and collectors can find their lane and compare, with staff-presented fits on request. The old lives on here– the original Arizona sign hangs in view, and those black-and-white catalogs remain within reach, not as relics but as working memory. The ritual has not changed: listen first, fit the knife to the hand, match the tool to life. Small business, strong legacy. What began at Jon Carpenter’s house continues, proudly, wherever the sign is lit.