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Column: This Old Store

  • This Old Store: Halvor Anderson Owned Stores in Three Locations

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    Halvor Anderson was born in Sturgeon Bay in 1900. He worked for Miller’s Clothing House, owned by the father of renowned painter Gerhard CF Miller, as well as the Peterson and Hoslett groceries before buying his own grocery store in Baileys Harbor.  A newspaper item from June 1935 indicated that Anderson bought the store from […]

  • This Old Store: Beach Road Market

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    Greg Diltz has fond memories of the Beach Road Market north of Sister Bay. We don’t know how we missed including this little gem in the 2019 series about old stores in Northern Door County, but Greg provided lots of good information for this addendum to the series. His parents purchased Sunset Beach Cottages from […]

  • Mary Fischer

    Lawrence/Fischer Market’s Long History in Sturgeon Bay

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    During the summer of 1876, William B. Lawrence opened his meat market on Cedar Street at what is now 120 N. 3rd Ave., the current location of Wilkins & Olander. (Street names were changed during WWII.) There were already two grocery stores, a blacksmith shop and a saloon on the dirt road. By 1889, the […]

  • Brussels Store

    64 Years of Pierre-Henquinet Store in Brussels

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    In 1906, when his daughter, Mae, was two years old, Gabe Pierre established the Brussels Store on School Road in Brussels. By the time a newspaper story celebrated the 50th anniversary of Pierre’s store – “Brussels’ oldest business establishment” – Mae reported that she’d been clerking there since she was eight years old.  By 1956, […]

  • All Three Squier Men Had Grocery Stores

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    The Squier family left a long legacy in the Sturgeon Bay grocery business.Edmund (Ed) Squier was born in 1856 and married Josephine Shimmel, thedaughter of another Sturgeon Bay grocer. The earliest printed record of aSquier store was in May 1914, when an ad in the Door County Democratannounced that Ed Squier’s Grocery had moved into […]

  • This Old Store: Lodl’s Grocery at Maple and Lansing

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    During the late 1920s, Minnie and Herman Tess had a grocery store at 86 W. Maple St. on Sturgeon Bay’s west side, and they lived on the second floor with their daughter, Linda. The business was later owned by Cyril (Cy) and Emily Malcore, who had previously owned a meat market in Brussels that they […]

  • This Old Store: Worley’s Grocery A Testament to a Family’s Persistence

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    When Sarah DeBaker Worley’s husband, George Worley Sr., abandoned her and their four children during the early years of the 20th century, it was hard for a divorced, Catholic woman to find work. She received relief from Sturgeon Bay and Door County for a while before finding a job as a school custodian to support […]

  • This Old Store: Trodahl’s at Madison and Maple

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    ‘The busiest grocery store in town’ Anyone born in Sturgeon Bay since 1967 can tell you there’s been a gas station on the northwest corner of Madison and Maple streets for as long as they’ve lived. And they’re right. But for 97 years before that, a grocery story occupied that corner.  The first one was […]

  • Mann’s: ‘The Store Where You Can Always Get It’

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    There are likely a number of isolated areas in the country that have access to just one grocery store, but it’s not likely that anywhere else can match Washington Island’s record of having the same store for 117 years, run by five generations of the same family.  In 1902, 21-year-old George O. Mann went to […]

  • THIS OLD STORE: Bley’s Grocery in Jacksonport

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    Ralph Herbst and his dad, Elmer, built the first grocery store in Jacksonport in 1949. Ralph left a few years later to join the Navy and ended up making a career of it.  Wayne Bley was six when his parents, Wallace and Laverne, bought the store in 1956 and changed the name to Bley’s Grocery, […]

  • This Old Store: The Lundberg Store

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    In 1902, Alex and Alice Lundberg closed their Juddville store and built a general store in Fish Creek. They also built a large home at the corner of Cottage Row and Maple Street that’s now part of the White Gull Inn property. The turn of that century – when tourism was beginning and new homes were […]

  • This Old Store: Happy Herman’s Market in Sister Bay

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    After weeks of scrubbing, painting and stocking shelves, Herman and Keta Steebs opened Happy Herman’s Market the week before Christmas in 1956. John Kopitzke ran a half-page ad in the Door Reminder and, as Keta said, “inadvertently became our first customer by buying a nickel candy bar.” Keta’s brother-in-law, Wesley Landstrom, made a huge, plywood […]