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Then and Now: The famed Co-op and other grocery stores along West Street in Gardner
City has three supermarkets today, but 60 years ago there were four within a quarter of a mile of each other downtown
Mike Richard
Special for The Gardner News
At the present time there are three supermarkets in Gardner – Hannaford, Price Chopper and the Walmart Supercenter.
However, if you go back 60 years ago, there were four supermarkets within a quarter of a mile in the downtown Gardner area alone.
And that doesn’t even count the more than three dozen mom and pop corner stores that also inhabited that section of the city.
First National Stores usher in age of the supermarket in Gardner
First store of its kind in city attracts 10,000 people to its grand opening
Mike Richard
Special for The Gardner News
The decade of the 1950s opened up a wide world of newness and novelty for society in America. World War II had ended and a new prosperity gave way to a baby boom explosion of automobiles, television and rock n roll music.
Another of these unique innovations – the supermarket – made its debut on the local scene 70 years ago last spring with the opening of Gardner’s first shopping headquarters, the First National Stores at 57 City Hall Ave., on April 27, 1950.