Now on Display at the Historical Museum
Home Market
Let’s roll back the clock to the first half of the 20th century when there were numerous small grocery stores in San Anselmo’s downtown area and scattered in its neighborhoods. Most were mom-and-pop or family-owned businesses. Some of these stores dealt only in dry goods like flour, dry beans, and canned foods, while others sold perishable foods – meats, poultry, fish, fruits and vegetables. In the downtown area in the 1930s and 40s, there were more than a dozen businesses catering to the grocery needs of town residents.
As a matter of fact, you could buy everything you needed right in town – hardware and gardening supplies, lumber, clothing, baked goods and delicatessen items, drugs and sundries, wine and liquor (after the repeal of Prohibition in 1933), automobiles and tires, jewelry and gifts. Milk, cream and butter were available from several local dairies or at creameries downtown.
The display highlights some of the many grocery, produce and meat markets doing business in San Anselmo prior to 1950.
Purity Market on Tunstead