NEW: Altoona, 1925-2020

Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Moderator: Groceteria

Post Reply
User avatar
Groceteria
Great Pumpkin
Posts: 1969
Joined: 04 Nov 2005 12:13
Location: In the breakroom
Contact:

NEW: Altoona, 1925-2020

Post by Groceteria »

Altoona turned out to be more interesting and more time-consuming than I expected, with all the small service stores in evidence eceb into the early 1960s. A&P kept a counter-service store open until 1956, even (see attached).

Anyway, enjoy:

https://www.groceteria.com/place/pennsylvania/altoona/


Altoona.jpg
rich
Veteran
Posts: 681
Joined: 15 Nov 2005 20:51
Location: Washington, DC

Re: NEW: Altoona, 1925-2020

Post by rich »

A&P had a division and a warehouse in Altoona up until the 1980s. They sometimes had them in places that seemed too close to a more major city. Toledo was another, bigger example. I think they also had one in Fort Wayne.

I’m surprised Thorofare wasn’t here.
User avatar
Groceteria
Great Pumpkin
Posts: 1969
Joined: 04 Nov 2005 12:13
Location: In the breakroom
Contact:

Re: NEW: Altoona, 1925-2020

Post by Groceteria »

There were briefly (in 1941) Streamline Markets in Altoona and Hollidaysburg, which I'm assuming were the same Streamline chain that was Thorofare's predecessor, but I'm not sure about that. Thorofare was in Johnstown but maybe that's as far east as they got.
rich
Veteran
Posts: 681
Joined: 15 Nov 2005 20:51
Location: Washington, DC

Re: NEW: Altoona, 1925-2020

Post by rich »

Thorofare went pretty far South (Fairmont WV, East Liverpool, Ohio) by the mid 50s, but they didn't seem to go very far North, East, or West. Eastward they would have run into the dropoff of the Allegheny Plateau (Altoona is close to this) which is an adventure to drive even in dry weather in a sedan, let alone a semi. That seems like a natural barrier they respected.

The A&P warehouse is for sale: https://abcdcorp.org/properties/24-Offi ... 6602-%240/
jleyerle
Contributor
Posts: 50
Joined: 28 Nov 2020 22:09

Re: NEW: Altoona, 1925-2020

Post by jleyerle »

That's a cool article! Wonder what the last service store in the A&P system was--either the one on Royal in New Orleans or perhaps one somewhere in NYC.
mjhale
Contributor
Posts: 45
Joined: 16 Jan 2011 23:05

Re: NEW: Altoona, 1925-2020

Post by mjhale »

rich wrote: 28 Jun 2022 21:58 A&P had a division and a warehouse in Altoona up until the 1980s. They sometimes had them in places that seemed too close to a more major city. Toledo was another, bigger example. I think they also had one in Fort Wayne.

I’m surprised Thorofare wasn’t here.
Do you know the coverage area for the A&P Altoona warehouse? My family is from Clinton County PA which is NE a couple of counties from Altoona. There were A&P stores in Lock Haven and Renovo that closed in 1982. I was always curious where A&P supplied these stores from. The mountainous terrain of this area would not have been easy at all to get stock from Altoona up to Clinton county when the stores would have been open. Even now with modern interstates the winter is dicey because the freeways were built close to the peaks of the mountains. But with the Altoona division going out in the 1980s it would coincide with when the Clinton County PA A&P stores closed.
mjhale
Contributor
Posts: 45
Joined: 16 Jan 2011 23:05

Jubilee Foods Re: NEW: Altoona, 1925-2020

Post by mjhale »

Does anyone have any background on Jubilee Foods? It was a small chain that I ran across traveling through Altoona over the years. At some point they sold out to Ahold who is using the Martins name in Altoona due to Giant Eagle also being there. The only one of the still operating Martins stores that looks like it is in a Jubilee building is the 2032 E Pleasant Valley Road location.
BillyGr
Veteran
Posts: 200
Joined: 10 Feb 2006 22:35
Location: Upstate NY

Re: Jubilee Foods Re: NEW: Altoona, 1925-2020

Post by BillyGr »

mjhale wrote: 10 Dec 2022 09:47 Does anyone have any background on Jubilee Foods? It was a small chain that I ran across traveling through Altoona over the years. At some point they sold out to Ahold who is using the Martins name in Altoona due to Giant Eagle also being there. The only one of the still operating Martins stores that looks like it is in a Jubilee building is the 2032 E Pleasant Valley Road location.
Not sure about the background, but there are still some stores operating with that name. A quick search brings up Emmittsburg, Maryland, Horseheads, NY and Madison, Minnesota. They all have a similar looking logo that (as best as I can remember) looks like what the chain used in the past.

Was trying to remember if this was one of those chains that was connected to a wholesaler that went out of business at some point (for instance, the one that supplied Kmart super stores) and that was how some (but not all) the stores got sold to Ahold, while a few scattered ones were maybe like franchises and they stayed independent, using the name with some other wholesale option?

EDIT - OK, if I actually read one of the sites... ;)

https://shopjubileefoods.com/about/ (This is the MD one) - One of the current owners previously worked for Fleming companies (that's the Kmart wholesaler) that also owned Jubilee. So, what I was trying to remember above is actually what it was!
mjhale
Contributor
Posts: 45
Joined: 16 Jan 2011 23:05

Re: Jubilee Foods Re: NEW: Altoona, 1925-2020

Post by mjhale »

BillyGr wrote: 11 Dec 2022 12:58 EDIT - OK, if I actually read one of the sites... ;)

https://shopjubileefoods.com/about/ (This is the MD one) - One of the current owners previously worked for Fleming companies (that's the Kmart wholesaler) that also owned Jubilee. So, what I was trying to remember above is actually what it was!
I'm guessing that the 2000 date that the current ownership got the Emmitsburg store is around when Flemming went bust? There was another Flemming owned chain in Central PA and a few towns in MD under the name of Festival Foods. Weis bought several of their old locations in 2000 when I assume Fleming went out of business. If this is the case we could probably say that Ahold probably got the Jubilee stores in the Altoona area at that time and the rest went to franchisee stores like the one in Emmitsburg, MD. I recall that the Jubilee stores were more like standard grocery stores whereas the Festival Foods store were more of a warehouse concept. The was a Festival Foods on Union Deposit Road in Harrisburg that I used to stop at on my way back to college in Northcentral PA. Festival had a nice hot foods area that was a good change from fast food. The rest of the store was warehouse shelving and lots of price impact type displays if I remember correctly.
BillyGr
Veteran
Posts: 200
Joined: 10 Feb 2006 22:35
Location: Upstate NY

Re: Jubilee Foods Re: NEW: Altoona, 1925-2020

Post by BillyGr »

mjhale wrote: 11 Dec 2022 20:52
BillyGr wrote: 11 Dec 2022 12:58 EDIT - OK, if I actually read one of the sites... ;)

https://shopjubileefoods.com/about/ (This is the MD one) - One of the current owners previously worked for Fleming companies (that's the Kmart wholesaler) that also owned Jubilee. So, what I was trying to remember above is actually what it was!
I'm guessing that the 2000 date that the current ownership got the Emmitsburg store is around when Flemming went bust? There was another Flemming owned chain in Central PA and a few towns in MD under the name of Festival Foods. Weis bought several of their old locations in 2000 when I assume Fleming went out of business. If this is the case we could probably say that Ahold probably got the Jubilee stores in the Altoona area at that time and the rest went to franchisee stores like the one in Emmitsburg, MD. I recall that the Jubilee stores were more like standard grocery stores whereas the Festival Foods store were more of a warehouse concept. The was a Festival Foods on Union Deposit Road in Harrisburg that I used to stop at on my way back to college in Northcentral PA. Festival had a nice hot foods area that was a good change from fast food. The rest of the store was warehouse shelving and lots of price impact type displays if I remember correctly.
I believe that Fleming went bankrupt just after Kmart went into bankruptcy, as they were owed a fair amount of money for supplying the Kmart locations (especially the Super stores) and Kmart was their big client, making it hard to offset losses from them with other accounts. So, whenever the Kmart one was, they would be close behind.
Lofquist
Member
Posts: 2
Joined: 18 Jun 2024 18:57

Re: NEW: Altoona, 1925-2020

Post by Lofquist »

I am researching a wrongful conviction/execution case that occurred in Pittsburgh in 1941/42. The victim and the lone eyewitness identified the killer as white. After months of fruitless investigation, police were able to lead a young, homeless Black man into confessing and he was subsequently executed. The man who, I am confident, committed the murder was briefly a suspect but the police were unable to overcome his alibi that he was working in an A&P grocery store in Bellefonte at the time of the killing. Pittsburgh police traveled to Altoona to check their district office records. There was no official word on what they found.

So, my long-shot questions are: in your work on Altoona, were you able to learn anything about the AP district office there? Is there any chance that any sort of records survive? More general question, do you have any idea what the store hours would have been for a 1941 A&P? Any direction would be much appreciated.
User avatar
Groceteria
Great Pumpkin
Posts: 1969
Joined: 04 Nov 2005 12:13
Location: In the breakroom
Contact:

Re: NEW: Altoona, 1925-2020

Post by Groceteria »

Lofquist wrote: 25 Jun 2024 13:08So, my long-shot questions are: in your work on Altoona, were you able to learn anything about the AP district office there? Is there any chance that any sort of records survive? More general question, do you have any idea what the store hours would have been for a 1941 A&P? Any direction would be much appreciated.
A "district office" for that region at the time might well have been in the back room of a store or maybe a small office in a downtown office building. I'm not sure what the specific setup would have been in Altoona, but I imagine there is approximately a zero percent chance that any of its records would still exist, since A&P itself no longer even exists.

I would imagine store hours in a town like that would probably have been Monday-Saturday 8AM-6PM or something close to that, with maybe later closing one or two nights during the week. You might be able to dig up more from newspaper archives. I'm pretty sure the Altoona paper back catalog is available on Newspapers.com, and they do offer a free trial.

Good luck!
Lofquist
Member
Posts: 2
Joined: 18 Jun 2024 18:57

Re: NEW: Altoona, 1925-2020

Post by Lofquist »

Thank you. That's helpful. Another question occurs to me. Any idea how an employee or employer at that time (1941) would demonstrate that someone had worked at a given time and place? Would they punch a clock (as I did at Kroger in 1979) or sign in or?
jleyerle
Contributor
Posts: 50
Joined: 28 Nov 2020 22:09

Re: NEW: Altoona, 1925-2020

Post by jleyerle »

It would have either been a strict timeclock setup, or a paper ledger---and likely a 50/50 chance of either. They likely had NCR cash registers universally (no matter whether it was a service store or an early central-checkout supermarket) but you could see a small service store doing a paper sign in ledger (a supermarket was undoubtedly a timeclock).
Post Reply