Posted by John Lloyd. Here’s what he has to say about it:
Harding’s Market, 3128 Portage St, Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1958. The store later moved to the strip mall seen in the background, across the street. I think it is still there now.
And here’s another vintage shot of hardware shoppers:
This one was posted by Stephen Pellegrino and he says it’s from Taos, NM.
Well we all know who the really thrifty shopper is in that top picture. 🙂
A Champion shopper for sure.
A Champion shopper for sure.
Being the designated slave labor in the house, I was the champion licker of those Green Diamond savings stamps.
If that was the Harding’s at the corner of Parkview and Oakwood, in the 60s, you could have seen my mom’s 64 Rambler in the lot. In 58 however, that Oakwood store was “Carl’s Market” and you could have seen the 56 Commander in it’s original white over light blue, before Harding’s bought it and added on to the building.
I can’t tell for sure if that strip center in the background is Cork Lane, but that is the only strip center in that area. That Gulf gas station appears to be where a Dairy Queen is. When I lived close to that area in the late 70s and 80s, I traversed that intersection almost daily.
When I was in the area, the east end of that building, out of frame to the left, was a video rental store, and the site of a rather grisly murder. The building is now an O’Reilly Auto Parts store.
Harding’s in it’s current location in Cork Lane.
That champion shopper drove her ’50 Studebaker Champion Custom two door sedan with roof racks clamped to the drip rail and blackwalls for the bargains of the week. The Custom series was the spartan, de-trimmed, price-leader added to the 1950 line to compete with the low-priced three.
Kalamazoo has more than it’s share of cheapskates. I talked with a guy who claimed to be the AMC zone rep that called on Art Post, the dealer in Kalamazoo. He said Post always ordered bare bones cars for stock. “That is what my people buy” Post told him. When my Aunt bought her 70 Ambassador from Post she ordered it, but Post didn’t even try to sell her up to a larger engine, or even electric wipers. She was furious when she discovered the car had vacuum wipers. She would have gladly gone the $25 for electric wipers, if Post had only said something, like “unlike every other car maker in the US for the past dozen years, AMC still uses vacuum wipers, but electrics are available”.
Harding’s is still a value-priced, small-scale, supermarket chain found only in the southwestern corner of Michigan.
I love that coloured photo. Wonder if Los Alamos is responsible for the cloud formations?
I also have this Kodacolor slide photo taken in 1950 just outside Taos near Ranchito, NM. It’s a ’36-’38 Plymouth (?) with “genuine patina.”
sure is dirty
The ’37 Plymouth has a 1950 Kansas license plate, it would have been considered a very old cheap car then. Apparently it was driven where they had rain infrequently, the wiper arms are missing, only the stub are visible above the windshield.
The top picture reminds me how grocery stores looked in the 60’s in rural northwest Ohio, where I grew up.
In addition, there was a small store outside of Findlay, OH called the Country Market. It was in a really old wooden building that might have originally been a general store. They not only had groceries, but all sorts of other stuff, including a lot of the models I bought as a kid.
The store is long gone, but the building is still there and is being used still for some kind of business.
I’ll take either the ‘57 Ford grocery getter or the ‘46 to ‘48 Chrysler (?) hardware hauler. 😉
Paul, I saw this and thought of you:
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1964-ford-f-100-4/
Were Diamond Thrift Green Stamps related to S&H Green Stamps? The latter always seemed like they were offered by lower-tier stores than Blue Chip Stamps, in California. I remember it was a special treat to stick the stamps in the book, then go to the redemption center to get something that was usually worthless junk.
Worthless junk? I still have a socket set I got over 50 years ago from the Green Stamp store. The ratchet eventually gave up, but the sockets are still going strong. Also got a Coleman lantern and camp stove that served many years.
Were Diamond Thrift Green Stamps related to S&H Green Stamps?
I think they were two difference companies.
My grandparents shopped at the National grocery store in Oakwood, which gave out S&H stamps. Mom shopped the Harding’s in Oakwood, which gave out Green Diamond. Oakwood is a neighborhood on the near west side of Kalamazoo centered on the intersection of Oakwood Dr, Parkview and White’s Rd.
In South Carolina we called them green backs. Redeemable at piggly wiggly. Up until the late 90’s. Great for families on a budget like we were.
The places in the pictures are like the places my grandparents shopped.
Im grateful I don’t have to shop at places like that now, but I still do thanks to the stuff my grandparents showed me. They made it through the depression and raised their kids on a shoestring. But they/we always had enough when family hit hard times
We’ve never been better than blue collar and I grew up in a house that had no room but lots of love. So seeing pictures like this that could swap for pictures in my family albums makes me happy. Thanks for sharing them. If I had the pics and the actual times I would post my grandparents cars.
I was hoping for more than two pictures, I love these candid pictures of the way life was back in the day.
I fell over laffing when I saw this pic on the wall of the Gilmore’s muscle car exhibit that opened last year. This Schwarz;s was on South Westnedge, just south of Kilgore Rd, which was the boundary between Kalamazoo and Portage. Unfortunately, there are no cars in the pic, but there is a story of that restaurant, teen-age hi-jinks and a 1962 Thunderbird.
Two more from my collection: Upper Manhattan, Summer 1962.
207th St. west of Sherman Ave.
Nice ’58 Chevy
St. Nicholas Ave. and 155th St.
I remember as a kid going shopping in stores like that Harding’s: grocery stores that were usually “Mom and Pop” operations. Almost never bought all our groceries at these stores, but instead bought our meat, or bread or vegetables because they were “better” than what A&P or ACME offered.
My family collected Green Stamps, too, as gas stations also gave them out. And yes, 99% of the items at the redemption centers were quality goods. Unfortunately, our nearest redemption center was nearly a 90 minute trip, one way, so have to wonder if it was worth it.
Love the street scenes in the original post and comments!
S&H Green Stamps were available in my small southeastern Ohio town when I was growing up in the ‘60s. Mom & dad would redeem them at the redemption center in Columbus when we went to visit grandma.
As long as the thread started with a pic from Kalamazoo, the old Sears store on Crosstown Parkway. Looks like DeNooyer Chevy was getting more than it’s share of business.
Michigan theater in downtown. Beats me how that Fiat 500 got there. Could have been a student at Western Michigan University that brought it to town.