Published by The History Press
Charleston, SC 29403
www.historypress.net
Copyright 2013 by Anthony F. Prinster
All rights reserved
First published 2013
e-book edition 2013
ISBN 978.1.62584.772.0
Library of Congress CIP data applied for.
print edition ISBN 978.1.62619.286.7
Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the authors or The History Press. The authors and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.
All views and opinions expressed in this book are those held by the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of The Kroger Co., Dillon Companies Inc., or City Market.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is dedicated to the Prinster familythose who have gone before us, those who are with us now and future generations. This book is further dedicated to all City Market employees past and present, wherever they may be. They have always been a vital part of the City Market success. My hope is that this book records and preserves the City Market history for all to enjoy.
CONTENTS
PREFACE
The Continental Divide separates the state of Colorado into the Eastern Slope and the Western Slope. The Eastern Slope is also referred to as the Front Range and includes the Greater Denver Metropolitan Area. Over the years, friends and colleagues living on the Eastern Slope have, with good humor, referred to those of us from the Western Slope as Back Slopers. We choose to wear this moniker as a badge of honor and distinction.
The Prinster family has lived on the Western Slope of Colorado for more than ninety years, yet until recently, little was known about our origins. Our family nurtured a small meat shop on North Fourth Street in Grand Junction, Colorado, and transformed the City Market brand into a retail grocery chain that dominated its market area for decades. As the great-grandson of Joseph, the grandson of Frank and the son of Frank Jr., I believed that the full story should be tolda story that begins with a penniless nineteen-year-old European immigrant and closes with the business becoming part of the largest supermarket chain in the United States. This book is my effort to do that.
Part of the hard work for me was to decide the scope and breadth of what should be covered during our 150-year history. Which of the fascinating events, people and documents that I found should be included? It had to be limited. I concluded that this story should stay focused on the City Market business and the specific family members who made it all happen between 1854 and 1970. It still wasnt easy.
Research for this book has been ongoing for more than ten years. I searched through the courthouse archives of Otero County in La Junta, Colorado, and those in Mesa County, Colorado. I traveled to Riffian, Italy, and also spent countless hours searching on the Internet. During that time, a statement attributed to Barbara Tuchman, the Pulitzer Prizewinning author of The Guns of August, came to mind. She proclaimed that doing historical research was seductively enjoyable, but the actual writing was hard work. She was right.
We have a large family. Family members live all around the United States and in several countries in Europe. There are people from all walks of lifenurses, teachers, engineers, computer scientists, writers, lawyers, soldiers, priests and monks. Each has an interesting story to tell and accomplishments to acknowledge. It would have been too difficult to tell everyones storythat book would take a lifetime to write. In these pages (with the exception of a short chapter about the fifth brother, Edward the priest), the scope has been limited to the story of how a family business began and how it grew.
City Market began with an immigrant born in 1854, Josef Franz Pruenster. Little was known about his birthplace, his family, the place he came from and how he traveled. Searches of available ship passenger lists, census records and archived newspaper articles were often more confusing than helpful. Some believed that he immigrated from Hungary or Moravia, others Austria or Switzerland. His descendants believed that Austria or Switzerland was more likely. No one was ever sure. His immediate family remembered him talking of hiking near Innsbruck, his love of the mountains and how he longed to return there some day. He never did.
Over those years, our business touched the lives of many people in the food industry, family members, employees, friends and business associates. There were just too many to acknowledge individually. However, two very important groups must be recognized. City Market was successful not just because the Prinster family worked like dogs over four generations to make the business a success, but also because many individuals associated with the company in many different capacities contributed to its growth and success over the years. City Market had, as part of its essence, a core of very dedicated, loyal and hardworking employees. Those employees were major contributors to the ultimate success that City Market enjoyed; they helped make it an enterprise that survived hard times and the changes that City Market endured over the decades.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Work on this book began more than ten years ago with efforts to locate the path my great-grandfather followed from South Tyrol, Italy, to America. Credit for this end product, however, belongs to many creative, talented and hardworking individuals. Once started on this project, I found, without exception, that everyone who was asked to write, research or provide information was enthusiastically willing to help. That was a real treasure, and I thank everyone.
The writing team was first rate. My coauthor, Kate Ruland-Thorne, herself an accomplished author of many historical books, brought a colorful and creative style to the book that could never be found in dry old legal records and writings. She set the course and tone for telling the story. My brother, Thomas N. Prinster, provided two very important things: excellent creative writing advice and encouragement. Tom, I am grateful for your help. Our distant relative and my Internet friend Tayana Pruenster was a critical team membersimply put, a gem. Tayana helped with historical information, documents, pictures and edits. To our delight, she proved herself to be an editors editor. Ann Griffin, my first cousin, was most helpful with her writing and knowledge of events in our grandparents lives. George Orbanek was a welcome contributor as a peer review reader and editor. Margaret Allyson, of Dallas, Texas, another Internet friend, was masterful as our copy editor. Krystyn Hartman, of Grand Valley Magazine, gets the credit for finding many of the talented players and help in negotiating the path to the publishing world. Thank you, Krystyn.
Multiple hours were given in recorded interviews, which refreshed memories and helped to develop the factual historical data. These willing contributors were Joseph C. Prinster Sr., John H. Prinster, Lucille Haggerty, Miriam Peckham, Patricia Penny Prinster, Fran Higgins, Herb Bacon, Curtis Robinson and Don Lowman (vice-president, Otero Museum, La Junta, Colorado, who first told me about the Zulu cars).
