The Kroger of '49

Sorry for the shorter post this time around, I’m scrambling to get some work stuff done before we leave for Chicago for the Thanksgiving holiday. We’re looking forward to the trip - the forecast calls for a 10% chance of snow and a 90% chance of Portillo’s.These photos, however, say a thousand words. They’re from 1949 and show a Kroger interior in fine form. I love the wide shot, showing the

Remembering JFK, 45 Years Later

The photograph above was taken in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, 45 years ago today. It depicts President John F. Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline, along with Texas Governor John Connally and his wife Nellie en route from Love Field Airport to the Dallas Trade Mart, where the president was scheduled to give a speech. The photo was taken at approximately 12:25 pm, as the motorcade passed in

Kroger in Cleveland, 1935

Despite a 28% drop in sales from 1929 to 1933 and a number of other challenges, Kroger withstood the onslaught of the depression better than many of its grocery chain counterparts. With nearly 5,000 stores, Kroger was in a dominant position in many of its markets.One of the “other challenges” came in April 1930, when Kroger chairman William H. Albers resigned to start his own supermarket chain.

Barney Kroger - The Cincinnati Kid

The history of Kroger, like that of so many companies born in the same era, is a great American story. The roots of today’s Kroger Company reach back to 1876, when 16-year old Bernard Henry Kroger took a job selling coffee and tea door-to-door for The Great Northern and Pacific Tea Company in his hometown of Cincinnati. Kroger, one of ten children born to German immigrants, worked hard to help

Kroger Blue

Well, I’ve been Krogering for nearly half my life now. They were still around in the Chicago area when I was very young, though I don’t recall our family ever shopping there in those years. By 1971 they had pulled out of the market completely, selling most area stores and their distribution center to Dominick’s. Moving to the south in 1987, the first Kroger stores I remember sported the “

A Nifty Fifties Thriftimart

Here’s another wonderful Southern California gem, shown through the courtesy of the Orange County Archives. This Thriftimart supermarket opened in mid-1955 in Garden Grove, California on the northwest corner of Chapman Avenue and Brookhurst Street, in what was originally slated to be known as the Melody Park Shopping Center, a nod to the adjacent Melody Park and Melody Estates subdivisions. A