A Fun New Hobby!

[Floyd]

On my days off, if I am bored with little money and nothing to do, I have come up with a new hobby. I do Market/Retail Store researching by looking through "The Stockton Record" Newspaper microfilm. Unlike Telephone Books or Polk Directorys, I can find out when a business opens and when it goes out of business. I also look at old market ads. I remember in the old days when on Wednesdays, Most Supermarkets including the small ones would place their ads "IN THE PAPER" rather than a separate insert. In fact most Supermarkets send their ads by mail instead of placing them in the newspaper. Probably costs too much. Only "CentroMart" advertises the old fashioned way in the newspaper on Wednesday. I find this hobby alot of fun. I wonder if others do the same as me or am I alone in this practice. In fact here is a little Stockton Market Trivia. Did you know that local chain "Gaines Market" sold all of their markets in 1970, a little at a time. At that time they had 6 stores. 1.) Gaines at 106 Lincoln Center last day was on March 24. It was sold to "Don Quick Market. 2.) Gaines at 6045 N. Eldorado Street last day was April 7. It was sold to "Save-Mart". 3.) Gaines at 4115 N. Eldorado Street last day was July 7. It was sold to "Don Quick Market". 4.) Gaines at 3314 N. Delaware Avenue near West Alpine Street last day was July 14. It was sold to "Sib's Market". 5.) Gaines at 2244 S. Airport Way last day was August 11. It was sold to Ulycess Williams who opened Stockton's first black owned supermarket "Uly's Market". 6.) Gaines last location at 110 N. Filbert Street in the "Disco Wonderworld" building last day was August 18. Sacramento based "Farmers Market" replaced it but not until the following year (March 31, 1971). I hope everyone enjoys my fun hobby!

[runchadrun]

As a UCLA employee I have access to the full Los Angeles Times archive online going back to 1881. From 1881 to 1985 the archive is in the form of PDFs and I can see the actual articles as they appeared in print, along with display and classified ads. (The stuff after 1985 is text only and not as interesting.) I also look at the ads and compare them to older or newer versions of a store's ads to see when individual stores opened or closed. And being a native Angeleno just seeing the ads brings back a lot of memories. Unfortunately because of copyright restrictions I can't post the PDFs here so I try to summarize the information when I can.

If I have some time to kill during lunch or at home, I'll just poke through the archive to see if I find anything interesting. Just the other day I found the announcement of the tract of homes where I now live along with a picture of the model home a couple of doors down. I also saw what the house cost new in 1956, the entire price was less than 10 monthly mortgage payments today!