Vigo County Historical Society
Historical Treasure Article
Historic Treasure of the Week -
March 24, 2002
By Freida Murphy
Vigo County Historical Society
F.W. Hoff Grocery served city well for 94 years
The F.W. Hoff Grocery stood at the corner of 13th Street and Wabash Avenue and was in business for 94 years. Hoff purchased the property, then left to fight in the Civil War. When he returned in 1865, he opened a grocery store.
In its early days, it was the only building between 13th Street and Seventh Street where the Terre Haute House stood. To the north was Chauncey Rose’s cow pasture, to the south, his corn fields, and to the east, swampland.
In the beginning, only the necessities of life were available. Most things were shipped in barrels as there were no boxes, cartons or bags. Eggs were brought to town in tubs of bran or oats to prevent breakage. The store was open from early morning until 11 at night. Most deliveries were made after dark by horse-drawn wagon and by the light from a kerosene lantern.
The store had homemade sausage, special cheese from New York, cardamon seed and other rare spices, molasses by the gallon, pickle crocks and barrels of salted mackerel. Sealing wax was a must during canning season.
Washboards in those days were made of a series of small rollers on brass rods. Bluing, a must for whitening the family wash, also was used in the dog’s drinking water, a guaranteed cure for Rover’s worms.
Travelers needed things like axle grease and feed for their animals.
They had the first electric coffee mill and the first meat slicer in Terre Haute.
If Hoff’s didn’t have it, store workers tried to get it. A woman who moved to Terre Haute from Philadelphia came into the store and asked for grapefruit. Hoff said he had heard of it, but didn’t know what it was. He asked his produce man from Chicago about it and soon 100 of the new-fangled fruit arrived. Hoff displayed them in the front window, but people didn’t know what they were for.
Hoff called the woman in and asked her what she did with them She advised him that she cut them in half, put sugar on them and ate them with a spoon. Sales picked up immediately.
The Historical Museum of the Wabash Valley, 1411 S. Sixth St., is open from 1 to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. The Web site: http://indstate.edu/community/vchs.