The Popcorn Wagon

This is another post from the past, beginning with an old photo of the family's antique popcorn wagon:

Now, this is not just any old-time popcorn wagon. This is the one which was operated by my grandmother on a downtown street corner of McMinnville, Oregon for thirty years. This is the popcorn wagon from which my family received Christmas gifts every year of caramel corn and red and green popcorn balls. This is where my sister and I sometimes used to spend the day when we visited Oregon for the summer. This popcorn wagon has lots of memories for me and for my family. This photo was taken in 1955:

My grandmother, a divorced mother of six, supported her family by selling popcorn and by renting out apartments in her large, old Victorian home. It was a family business and in the evening, we might be expected to help out mixing up huge batches of caramel corn in the giant copper kettle (that's my sister on the stairway watching):

Because we only visited in the summertime, we never got to help make popcorn balls. But we certainly helped (well, we were young so perhaps I should say we watched, not helped) with the making of caramel corn. This is my mother in 1955, putting it into bags after it'd been spread out to cool:

My sister and I searched through all our old photo albums for photos and newspaper clippings. "Mom Jenkins Knows Her Corn" was a favorite sign in downtown McMinnville, Oregon for thirty years. This article was from the Oregon Journal in 1955:

And it became known widely across the state from human interest stories which appeared in many cities' newspapers. This was from the Oregon Statesman in 1964:

In 1966, my grandmother retired and sold her popcorn wagon:

It was loaded up and hauled to a museum in the State Capital of Salem, Oregon:

That's McMinnville's J.C. Penny store in the background. Just around the corner was the town's only movie theater. She made it a point to be making popcorn when the movie crowd was coming or going so that the aroma would draw them over to buy a bag of REAL popcorn (and she also roasted peanuts):

My mother, Viola, working the popcorn wagon somewhere in the 1938-1944 range:

I found this City Vendor's License from 1952 interesting, mostly because it cost forty dollars. That was a lot of money back then, especially for an elderly lady with a big family to support:

Eventually, the museum in Salem decided it no longer wanted to display the old popcorn wagon. Local civic groups in McMinnville rescued it and it is now displayed proudly in the City Fire Department Building. But I'll always remember it sitting next to J.C. Penny in downtown McMinnville, Oregon: