Meat Markets

Wooden ice box for home use.

Gents cutting ice on the river with hand saws

Interior of a meat market. Look at the items hanging from the ceiling. Doesn't it look like they are cutting hams in the foreground?
And ad from 1925 for DeCremer Meat Market.

Listed in the 1910 directory

Meat Market

BLOM & FOSS 215 Main ave N (0.J. Blom, L.J. Foss)

Meat Market
Forsberg Meat Market, John P res 609 Horace ave N

Meat Market

ROD & FULLER 307 Bridge st (Axel Rod, John Fuller)

East Side Meat Market

Just how did this work? Did the meat markets actually take in meat on the hoof and did they act as slaughter houses?

I have more questions than answers regarding just how it was done at the turn of the century. We do know that many of the items were cured and others dried. We do know that house holds canned chicken and other meats. Something had to be done to preserve it before refrigeration.

Where did the people of Rosewood store their fresh meat? Did they have an underground cellar sort of place away from the house? Did Rosewood folks have a place to collect ice?

Did the butchers in Thief River Falls use ice to keep meat fresh? Where sides of beef shipped in to the town in ice packed cars? If the butchers did use ice, did people shop for meat on demand, that is, did they buy it as they used it?

Not even in old movies like, The Good Old Summertime do they give us a hint as to just how they kept those lamb chops fresh.

We can only guess that the meat markets had bigger storage with better insulation in the walls of the cold packing areas and that people, indeed, did go to the butcher and the market more often.

We do know that O'Hara sold coal & wood with an office in the Hotel Evelyn. We do know at one time, Ed O’Hara owned and operated a business called O’Hara Ice and Fuel. We know the ice was cut by hand using saws.

Mother shopped for meat at Holmberg Meat Market which was on Third Street East in the 200 hundred block. The men were jolly and willing to scoop up however much ground beef you wanted with a grey colored utensil and weigh it out and wrap it up. The place smelled of suet. They may have cut the sides up at the market but there was no slaughter house.

The only slaughter house I knew of was Joppru’s. I believe the place was started by Melvin Joppru. He had a slaughter house and a sales barn. One could buy beef on the hoof and it could be slaughtered and packaged there. The sales barn was a fun place to go. Not only did they sell beef, but goats, sheep, and horses as well.

Daddy and I would sit near the top of the bleaches. Melvin was an enterprising soul, he had wrestling matches in the sales barn, built an arena for rodeos, and also had a lunch counter where they sold pie and coffee.

Later, the place to party was in the locker. Nothing more fun than dancing between the swingin’ sides. The sheriff used to park across the drive way to the business and wait for under age kids to try to get out and get home when it was past curfew. It is Old Trunks understanding that Melvin's sons continued the business.