News Items from The Kansas City Journal ~ Old News That's New to You from Vintage Kansas City.com

November 28, 1909

WOLFERMAN LEASES CORNER.

Six-Story Building to Be Erected at

Fourteenth and Walnut.

A 50 x 115 foot tract on the northeast corner of Fourteenth and Walnut streets was leased for 99 years yesterday afternoon by O. H. Dean to Fred Wolferman of the Fred Wolferman Grocery Company, 1108-10 Walnut. The terms of rental are: $2,500 for the first year, $3,000 for the second, $3,500 for the third, $4,000 for the fourth, $5,000 for the fifth, $5,500 for the next five years and $6,000 a year until the expiration of the contract.

Mr. Wolferman is allowed five years in which to erect a six-story fireproof building which he will probably occupy with his store. The Walnut street property was purchased by Mr. Dean four years ago for $27,500. He is now leasing it on a basis of $100,000.

"I am renting the property with an eye to insuring a place for my store in the future when space becomes cramped," said Mr. Wolferman yesterday. "I have plenty of time to build, but will probably begin within a year. I may build a larger building than required by the contract. It is doubtful whether I will move into the building with my store for years yet as my lease at 1108-10 has a long time to run and the location with a little economy will supply my present needs."

The deal yesterday was through Charles E. Forgy of the Junction Realty Company.

Labels: Fourteenth street, real estate, Walnut Street, Wolfermans

January 24, 1909

IN BUSINESS TWENTY YEARS.

Fred Wolferman to Celebrate Round-

ing Out of Two Decades.

This week will be somewhat commemorable with housewives and those whose province it is to supply the larder, for Fred Wolferman's grocers and wine merchants at 1108-1110 Walnut street are to celebrate a 20th anniversary.

Old residents of Kansas City remember the early Wolferman's store at the corner of Ninth and Oak streets, where it remained for seven years. Later the concern moved to Walnut street and finally as business expanded, took in the store room next to it.

The Fred Wolferman store has never in any way before featured anniversaries or held "special sales," so that the unusual displays of merchandise in package and other form, and many rare and interesting "Good Things to Eat" shown will undoubtedly draw much favorable attention. Prices have been reduced on many articles for the first five days of this week.

Labels: food, Ninth street, Oak street, retailers, Walnut Street, Wolfermans

December 12, 1908

THE "BIG CHEESE" CUT TODAY.

Wolferman's Cream Cheese Is the

Largest Ever in Kansas City.

Mammoth Cheese on Display at Fred Wolferman's

Gargantuan Cream Cheese Shipped to Kansas City from Pennsylvania.

The mammoth Crawford county, Pennsylvania cream cheese which has been on display at Fred Wolferman's on Walnut street will be cut today. The cheese was so large that trained safe movers were found necessary to move the cheese and the glass had to be removed from the store's display window to get it in the shop.

If all is disposed of today its tremendous weight will make for lively selling. To sell a cheese tipping the scales at 2,207 pounds in the course of the 14 hours the store will be open today, Wolferman's would need to sell a pound every 20 seconds, or three pounds a minute. The cream cheese sells for 30 cents a pound.

Labels: food, retailers, Walnut Street, Wolfermans

December 4, 1908

SAFE-MOVERS FOR CHEESE.

Weight, Not Strength, the Problem
for Walnut Street Firm.

Safe-movers, six stalwart men trained in the handling of heavy things, were the only people to whom it was considered wise yesterday to entrust the transfer of a mammoth York State Cream Cheese into the show window at Fred Wolferman's.

The monster delicacy weighs 2,207 pounds, more than a ton. To admit it it was necessary to remove the glass from the display window, and the flooring had been solidly reinforced Tuesday afternoon to withstand such great weight.

This is the largest cheese ever brought to Kansas City. In speaking about it yesterday, Mr. Wolferman said: "It required special machinery and the efforts of ten expert cheese men to produce this cheese. No one but a student of dairy products or one who had devoted his life to cheesemaking would attempt it. The day's yield of more than a thousand cows, or 22,227 quarts of milk, were used. The extracting and cooking of the milk was all handled in one day, but the curing and other handling took practically two months."

The date for cutting this component of welch rarebits has not been set.

Labels: food, retailers, Walnut Street, Wolfermans