Akronisms | It wasn’t your grandpa’s chicken place Writing and photos by Jeff Davis
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ntrepreneurs have to be gutsy. But imagine moving 20 miles just so you could open a business with 140 nearby competitors. A gutsy move, wouldn’t you say? Or a little nuts, perhaps? Pick any adjective you want, but it’s something that just wouldn’t be done today. That’s what Frederick Wilhelm Albrecht did when he moved from Massillon to Akron in 1891 to start his own grocery. His little store near the corner of Buchtel and Center Streets became the first Acme. Akron was way different in 1891, having only 40,000 residents. Cuyahoga Falls had fewer than 500. The developed area of Akron extended roughly to the Cuyahoga River on the north, Arlington Street. on the east, Wilbeth on the south, and the continental divide — Portage Path — on the west. That’s about 12 square miles. The area we now call
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Northwest Akron wasn’t annexed until 1915, about the same time Firestone Park and Goodyear Heights were being developed. The City of Ellet and the Village of Kenmore weren’t annexed until 1929. But the locals surely didn’t have to worry about where their next meal was coming from. Home gardens and orchards supplied the produce, and backyard chicken coops took care of the eggs and Sunday dinner. What couldn’t be grown or raised at home came from nearby vendors. The 1990 city directory identifies 140 retail grocers, 18 bakers, eight milk depots and 47 meat markets in the city at the time. Indeed, it seemed as if one’s next meal was no more than a block or two away. Groceries were often little more than storefronts set up with merchandise located behind counters and proprietors living in the back or upstairs. Patron’s orders were fetched by clerks. There was no selfservice. The inventory tended to be
pantry staples, in-season produce, maybe some home-canned fruit or vegetables supplied by neighbors, soap, and housewares like clothes pins, ironing boards and clothes boilers. If a grocer carried anything that needed to be kept cold, he relied on the ice man. Affordable refrigeration, and even commercial canning, didn’t start in the U.S. until the mid 1910s. Fred Albrecht got through his first years by running a tight ship while keeping the needs of his customers first. In the early days his stores opened at 5:30 in the morning, six days a week. He had delivery boys that, were able to make two wagon trips in the morning and two in the afternoon. By 1900 Akron had a halfdozen F.W. Albrecht groceries and a warehouse. Albrecht painted his stores yellow for visibility and changed the name of the stores to “The Acme Stores.” He decided he would no longer offer his customers credit and switched to a
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cash-only business model, reasoning that bad debts had to be made back through higher prices. His no-credit policy allowed Acme to keep its prices low and, one by one, he added stores as his competitors dropped away. His business had 46 stores by 1920, and 91 by 1940, spread from Wooster to Youngstown.
Early on, Albrecht decided to number his stores to help his bookkeepers and delivery people keep track. Acme #1 -- the original Acme #1, not the one at 1835 West Market Street -- was at 204 East Center Street. That street number, if it still existed, would be on the University of Akron campus, somewhere around Guzzetta Hall and the Sisler-McFawn residence hall. But the store’s been long gone, as are many of the original locations. Several were taken by road building and normal redevelopment. A couple sites were bulldozed for new car lots. But, believe it or not, many of Fred Albrecht’s original Acme’s are still standing, according to county tax thedevilstrip.com
