Loaf of Bread and a Bottle of Milk
A close look at Amanda Lovblad's 1908 postcard photo shows a distant view of a mid-block grocery store that once stood at 3109 W. Lyndale. A bay window projects above an iron storefront a step up from the sidewalk. The dense concentration of houses and many large families living on the street supported several small groceries nearby at the corners of Lyndale & California, Lyndale & Sacramento, Palmer & Kedzie, as well as mid-block stores at 2856 and 3109 W. Lyndale. At one time there was even a small candy shop in the basement of 3110 W. Lyndale.
How did these little groceries compete with each other for customers? Were shoppers willing to walk slightly farther for lower prices or fresher food, or did residents feel obligated to support the nearest store to not offend the owner who was a neighbor? Beyond the basic staples available at each store, did each business stock different items to attract different customers?
The building at 3109 W. Lyndale was built in about 1885 by Christian Rohder. He is listed the following year as living in a coach house in back. He rented out the front building with a storefront and apartment above to the grocers August & Charles Krause.
After several years, Rohder sold the building in April 1892 to Charles and Anna Stilling for $2,250. A year later Stilling enlarged the building with an addition in back where the coach house had once stood.
Charles & Anna Stilling. Courtesy Kathy Van Stavern
Charles and Anna lived in the apartment above the storefront with their five children. Daughter Johanna was fifteen when the family moved in, and helped behind the counter of the store. Harry, the youngest child, was six. Later he would grow up to have a corner grocery of his own in Humboldt Park.
Charles Stilling passed away in 1907. By the 1910 census, the tailor Niels Gregerson and his wife Margaret and two grown sons are listed as living at 3109. They purchased the building from Anna Stilling two years later for $4,200 plus the $2,000 owed on the mortgage. Gregerson used the first floor as a workshop and retail store for his vest-making business. Neighbors in need of a loaf of bread or a bottle of milk rather than a vest had to walk to another nearby store to find their groceries.
Niels Gregerson retired and sold the building in 1919. The next owners rented the upstairs apartment to tenants who were not using the retail space on the first floor.
There is little recorded about what the space may have been used for during the next decade until April 1931 when a classified ad in the Tribune lists a business opportunity for sale:
The storefront grocery was run by various owners until the 1990s! The building was torn down in 2012 and replaced by a single-family home.
