Maplewood History: The Fischer Bros. Meat Market

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Here's a look from the opposite direction.

A few weeks back, I made a post with the title, “Everything Ziegler and a Bit of Fischer.”

Well, thanks to the generosity of Brad Ziegler, by the time I had posted everything Ziegler, I was out of time and energy so I promised to post my Fischer material in a follow up.  This is it.

As I mentioned, Jim Fischer gave Luke Havel and I a box that contained a large number of items.  Many of the items were interesting but had no connection to our fair city.  Some of them I  passed on to my neighbor, Adam Kloppe, who works for the Missouri Historical Society.  You may have heard him on the radio.  He, and some of his colleagues, produce very interesting audio clips about Missouri history.  I hear them on KDHX.  Anyhow, I figured that Adam would know what to do with these random historical bits of hard copy.  After all, he’s a professional.

Jim Fischer also gave us a wonderful digital gift…a high resolution copy of a historic image of his family’s early meat market.  We had this image in our collection but it wasn’t very good. So here is that image and some other stuff.  In an upcoming post, I’ll share some of the other oddities that were in Jim Fischer’s box.  Thanks again, Jim.

This is the image from our collection that we had prior to Jim Fischer’s gift. It’s not very good. Obviously came from a slide.
This is the much better version that Jim gave us.
Charlie Fischer cutting meat. Courtesy of the Maplewood Public Library.
This was their father that was executed for his part in the famous Haymarket Ri0t in Chicago.  Having been a member of the United Auto Workers for the past 54 years, I take my hat off to this gentleman.  He paved the way.  The image is from Wikipedia.

 

Now I’d like to show again some of the images from the Ziegler collection since these two families were so intertwined.  Thanks again to Brad Ziegler.

I hope you can read this one on your telephones.
We don’t want to leave out the Post-Dispatch.
A nice group photo to round this off.

 

I thought you may be curious as to the locations of the two stores that these families owned, the Fischer Bros. Meat Market and Ziegler Bros. Hardware.  So with the help of Photoshop…

Ziegler Bros. Hardware is very visible in this image from the 1904 Suburban Journal.  Thanks to Joellen McDonald.
This is the image the Ziegler brothers placed in their advertisement in the 1904 Suburban Journal.
They were just a few steps away from each other during their work days.  Image courtesy of the Maplewood Public Library.
Here’s a look from the opposite direction.  I think this image is courtesy of Donna Ratkowski.

 

Ziegler Bros. Hardware store was definitely around in 1904 but it doesn’t show up in the 1912 Maplewood directory.

This is a fascinating story.  There are a few other leads I’d like to run down.  As I’ve mentioned in the past posting on this blog is just like work in that it expands to fill the time allotted for it.  I’ll end it right here.  Should I uncover any more items of interest, I’ll certainly post them sometime in the future.

It is still summer. 97 degrees today.  Atmospheric bliss as far as I’m concerned but a drop is coming.  Tomorrow the high will just be in the low 70s.  I know, I know, some of you are cheering.

Doug Houser      September 21, 2022

 

 

 

6 COMMENTS

  1. Interesting that it seems the Tale to Table building lost it’s pointy decorative top between 1904 and 1909. And it has the pointy top in the postcard type image.

    • I take that back, Doug’s line was just pointing at the wrong building for Ziegler in the 1909 postcard. 🙂 So the Tale to Table building lost it’s pointys sometime after 1909.

      • Ian, the building, to which you are referring, was the home to T. Rohan Upholstery and Decorating for many years. It still exists. It is the first building west of Citizen’s Park. Today it no longer has the decorative parapet that can be seen in both of these images. The lines I drew are correct. They stop just above the buildings in all cases on both postcards. Thank you for your comments.

  2. Howdy Doug,
    Gary here, from the images of Ziegler Hardware it appears to be only 1 or 2 doors east of Scheidt which I think was operating around the same time, if so it’s curious that two hardware stores were so proximal to each other.

    • Hi Gary, Ziegler Bros. Hardware (7314-16 Manchester) was east of where Scheidt is today at 7320. The first hardware store operated by Emil Scheidt, called Wohlwend Hardware after his father-in-law who bankrolled it, opened at 7277 Manchester in 1907. They didn’t make the move to 7320 until 1916. Ziegler Hardware is not listed in the 1912 Maplewood business directory. If they were operating at the same time, it was only for a short while and not on the same block. Also remember that the area was rapidly developing. In retrospect it seems to me that we had a surplus of lumberyards but perhaps not. Thanks for your thoughts on this.

      • Not in the same area but on Greenwood Blvd on the side of the building next to Foley’s I believe you can see the ghost paint of a sign that says Hardware. Now whether that was a sign for that building or a sign with an arrow saying the Hardware store was this way I do not know. But you have to remember when this might have been a hardware store. Think of would you hook up a horse and buggy to drive up to Manchester to a hardware store if you lived on Oxford or some street in that area if you could walk to a store on Greenwood for a few nails or screws. I also think of that expression of being “on the other side of the tracks”. The train like is kind of a dividing line of the city it seems to me.

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