By Emily Rinaman, Technical Services Librarian
They say all things come back around, and one trend that’s returned, all be it in a different form, is home delivery. In 2021, Fortune rated Amazon as one of the fastest-growing companies with a 3-year growth rate of 66%. It has been on the top-100 list for five straight years.
While you can get just about anything delivered to your doors these days, historically there were a few main staples that were home-delivered besides the mail. Before the modern refrigerator was invented, highly perishable food items had to be purchased weekly or even daily in order to stay fresh and not spoil. “Regular staples—produce, meat, bread, and dry goods—had their own dedicated storefronts,” explains Caroline Lange in her article “The History of the Milkman”.
For meals, residents carved out a spot each day to make a short trip to one of the many butchers or grocers that seemed to line every street and corner in cities of Tiffin’s size. The Seneca County Business Directory of 1896 lists 15 meat markets loaded with fresh and salt meats, wild game, dried beef, bologna, sausage, and even oysters. One block of buildings in downtown Tiffin was even named after one of the local butchers—“Miller’s Block” honors butcher Mr. Miller (first name unknown) who operated a slaughterhouse in the back alley.
Photo was taken from the Tiffin-Seneca Sesquicentennial 1817-1967 book on SCDL.
During this same time period, an astonishing 33 grocery stores (14 just on Washington Street alone) were scattered throughout Tiffin. Some grocers had their own delivery wagons, including Howard Smith, who delivered apples, cabbage and pork when they were in season. Many customers were very loyal to one preferred shop owner. Myron Barnes, a former life-long Tiffin resident describes, “when there wasn’t a delivery service, the junior members of the family would be sent to the store with a list, and this could happen twice a day. The articles would be charged and on Saturday, one of the parents would go to the store and pay the bill for the week.”
During this era, dairy products and ice were all routinely delivered to homes. Just like Amazon, residents could get “next-day delivery” of their orders. Horse-drawn wagons were the most efficient method because they “were well suited to frequent stops and starts and could negotiate poor roads better than early motorized vehicles,” states an article on the Henry Ford Museum’s website.
Ice was not that easy to transport, as the common method was to load it up in 25-100-pound blocks. There was an efficient reason for this; the larger the ice block the slower it melts. As a young boy, George Gundlach, who wrote “Ramblin Comments on Tiffin, 1891-1926” on the SCDL, notes that the ice wagons took two horses to pull. “I put ice in practically every refrigerator in Tiffin and saw the housewives in the early morning in a state of undress. I knew everyone who kept beer in the refrigerator.”
An ice delivery wagon in Green Springs, Ohio. Taken from the Green Springs Ohio Centennial on the SCDL.
It wasn’t until as recently as the 1960s that these niche delivery options were fazed out when the era of supermarkets took over. You may be surprised to discover, though, that to find the origins of the modern-day food truck, we must go all the way back to the year 1866. The Civil War had just ended and people were migrating west in large droves. Covered wagons called Chuck Wagons served sandwiches, beans, biscuits, coffee and water to cowboys and loggers.
By the end of the century, push carts or “dog wagons” sold sausage links, meat pies and fruit on the side of the street in larger municipalities. It wasn’t long until corporate America caught on to the trend, and developed branded food-delivery products, such as the Wienermobile in 1936.
Tiffin and other cities tried kept up with this change. The Tiffin Wagon Works began producing delivery trucks and even wagon and carriage makers in places like Cleveland attempted to produce motor-operated vehicles. However, Detroit took over the auto-making industry by World War I forcing many of these smaller operations out of business. (Cleveland’s horse-drawn vehicle companies had dropped from 80 to 40 by 1916).
Ice cream trucks started to make their appearance in the 1950s, about the same time a long-standing local restaurant, which has recently begun its own mobile food delivery, took off – Jolly’s. In 1947 a married couple, Roy “Jolly” and Vivian Jolivette built the original Jolly’s building that has since been demolished (Jolly’s owns a double-storefront, one of which was originally a coffee shop). Eventually, their granddaughter, Diane Hassinger, would take over the business before selling it to Dave Spridgeon in June 2021. Spridgeon, a history lover, was impressed by the success of a multi-generational business and wanted to continue the legacy. “There’s something behind a business that lasts that long,” he said.
Jolly’s still sells many of the original menu items like its famous root beer, pork sandwiches, chicken gravy (for shredded chicken sandwiches), chili, homemade catsup, and the Mac & Cheese Roy (macaroni & cheese served with sloppy joe meat) and some of these make their appearance on its food truck menu.
When Spridgeon took over Jolly’s, he inherited everything, including Hassinger’s idea for a Jolly’s food truck. By the time Jolly’s switched hands, Hassinger had sold the truck to another local business, JT’s Bagel Bar, which often attends events around Lake Erie in the summer. Luckily, Spridgeon, already had some food truck experience, when he began operating his other food truck, The Pink Lady, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Once The Pink Lady passed inspection, Spridgeon drove it to places where essential workers still reported to their jobs, such as Mercy Hospital of Tiffin, Mennel Milling and Roppe Corporation in Fostoria, and even to factories in the Upper Sandusky area. He also collaborated with Smith Foods, another restaurant in Tiffin that operates a food truck on the side.
Just in the last 15 years or so, the world of food trucks has gained popularity, with unique food trucks popping up in all sorts of places. During the recession of the late 2000s, restaurants suffered and many chefs turned into food truck owner-operators. And in 2010, a television show titled “The Great Food Truck Race” premiered. Just four years later, the National Food Truck Association had formed.
The Tiffin Farmer’s Markets Association even recently shared that one of its chief requests from market-goers was to have more food trucks at future farmer’s markets, which they will execute this year. (Ironically, the very first food truck, a taco truck in Los Angeles, was converted from an old ice cream truck).
After the height of the pandemic slowed down and the ownership transfer of Jolly’s was official, Spridgeon purchased an old U.S. Postal Service truck, which he completely gutted to convert into a food truck. To meet code requirements, this truck is equipped with counter space, a hand-sink, a refrigerator, a 2-basket fryer, portable steam tables, and a smaller version of the equipment used for their homemade root beer. One menu item, called “The Original,” features gourmet grilled cheese with a bag of Ballreich’s potato chips, another long-standing family-owned Tiffin business that uses its own delivery trucks for its products.
Works cited:
Barnes, Myron. “Bicentennial Sketches by Myron Barnes.” https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/33669/rec/10
Barnes, Myron. “Between the Eighties, Tiffin, Ohio 1880-1980”. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/65253/rec/1
Butler, Stephanie. “From Chuck Wagons to Food Carts: The History of the Food Truck.” August 22, 2018. https://www.history.com/news/from-chuck-wagons-to-pushcarts-the-history-of-the-food-truck
Case Western Reserve University. “Wagon and carriage Industry.” Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. https://case.edu/ech/articles/w/wagon-and-carriage-industry
“The Complete History of American Food Trucks.” https://mobile-cuisine.com/business/history-of-american-food-trucks/
Crystal Ice Company. “How was Ice Delivered before refrigerators?” https://crystalicela.com/how-ice-delivered-before-refrigerators/
Fortune. https://fortune.com/company/amazon-com/100-fastest-growing-companies/
Fourth Annual Heritage Festival 1817-1962. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/27514/rec/1
Gunlach, George. “Ramblin Comments on Tiffin 1891-1926.” https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/22212/rec/1
Henry Ford Museum. “Horse-drawn Deliveries.” https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-collections/expert-sets/101755/
Howe, Barbara. “Building of the Week.” https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/28007/rec/1
Lange, Caroline. “A History of the Milkman.” Food52. Sept. 9, 2017. https://food52.com/blog/20229-milkmen-history
Prestige Food Trucks. “History of Food Trucks and How They’ve shaped America.”
March 23, 2020. https://prestigefoodtrucks.com/2020/03/history-of-food-trucks-and-how-theyve-shaped-america/
Seneca County Digital Library. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/search
SENECA COUNTY BUSINESS DIRECTORY 1896. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/23204/rec/1
Smith, Howard. The What, How And Who Of It: an Ohio Community in 1856-1880. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/16074/rec/1
Spridgeon, Dave. Interview on March 18, 2022.