Meyer's
Meat Market - aka City Meat Market / New Albin Meat
Market
Meyer's Market, New Albin
Photographer: Robertson
~The photo was contributed by Mark
Lanning. The white sun-shade across the front says
Meat Market. The darker window shades say F.C. Meyer
Meat Market. The sun-shade on the smaller building
reads H. Rippe. The people are not identified. The
photo likely dates ca1906-1910.
Meyer's Market, now known as City
Meat Market. F.C. Meyer moved the market to
this location in 1906. Known for its homemade
meats, the City Meat Market is currently (as of
2006) operated by the fifth generation of the
Meyer family.
~Text is from 1998 New Albin Savings Bank 100
Year Anniversary Calendar ~contributed by Errin
Wilker
100 Years of Service and Then
Some…New Albin Meat Market Changes with Times
Kelley, Alan, Shirley and Edgar Wuennecke (left to right)
pose in City Meat Market in New Albin
A meat market that opened about 1880 and
has been in the same family since 1882 still draws
customers from miles around. But like this community of
535 people, City Meat Market has changed with the times.
It has carried some grocery products since the late
1950s,and the jerky and other meat snack products it has
added in the last 20 years have become some of the
biggest sellers. Edgar and Shirley Wuennecke, 71 and 70,
have owned the business since 1958. Edgar still
occasionally works at the store, but it’s mostly run
by their son Alan Wuennecke, 39, and his wife, Kelley,
37. Alan and Kelley eventually will become the fifth
generation of their family to own the meat market.
August Peters started the meat market about 1880, said
Shirley, who is the family historian. Her
great-grandfather, Christopher Meyer, bought it in 1882.
His son, Fredrick Meyer, bought it in 1886 and built the
current two-story brick building in 1906. Then came
Fredrick’s sons, Albert (Shirley’s father),
Paul and Sigurd Meyer, and then Edgar and Shirley
Wuennecke.
“We get customers from everywhere from Minneapolis
to Chicago to Cedar Rapids, Iowa,” Kelley Wuennecke
said. “A lot of them make a special trip here, and
say they can’t find meat as good as we have.”
Some of their out-of-town customers own summer cabins
along the Mississippi River, Shirley said. And some have
discovered the meat market during a leisurely drive up
the Iowa and Minnesota side of the river, and then down
the Wisconsin side. “I’d say 75 to 85 percent
of our customers are from out of town,” Alan said.
“Quite a few” are from La Crosse, which is 30
miles to the north. New Albin is on Hwy. 26, just south
of the Iowa-Minnesota border. “Their summer sausage
is some of the best,” James Barry of North Hills,
Calif., said last week when he and his wife, Kay, stopped
at City Meat Market. The Winona, Minn., native and his
wife, who grew up in Harpers Ferry, Iowa, stop at the
store when they return to the area to visit relatives.
“We come here every chance we get,” James said.
“It’s a nice little store.”
The meat market’s biggest sellers include bologna,
jerky and pepperoni sticks, Alan said. “We sell
about 500 pounds of bologna a week,” he said.
“We’ve kind of had to change with the
times” over the years, Alan said. “The younger
clientele is more into the jerky and (pepperoni) snack
sticks as opposed to older people eating liver sausage.
It’s pretty hard to sell liver sausage to people
under 50.” Some of the meat market’s homemade
products are sausage, summer sausage, kopfwurst, dried
beef, tongue loaf, bratwurst and several kinds of jerky.
The store’s three main jerky varieties are beef, hot
beef and pork. City Meat Market also sells two popular
types of specialty jerky: turkey tenders, a smoked turkey
tenderloin that’s eaten as a snack food, and chicken
jerky. The Wuenneckes do their own smoking in the
smoke-house just behind the meat market. They use hickory
wood. The Wuenneckes buy boxed fresh meat and cut their
own steaks. Other meats include pork steak, pork chops,
beef roast, picnic ham and luncheon meats. The market
buys premium products. “When people come here, they
want the good beef,” Alan said. “They can buy
lesser-grade beef elsewhere. We try to keep with the
higher quality.”
Many other businesses have vanished from New Albin during
the meat market’s 120-year history. When Edgar and
Shirley took over the business in 1958, Edgar said,
“We had four grocery stores and five taverns. Now
we’re down to two of each,” including the meat
market and the Main Street Market grocery store. The
community also had two hardware stores and a lumber yard
when Edgar and Shirley took over, but those, too, are
gone. New Albin’s population has stayed about the
same, but fewer people live on farms and more people are
shopping at large stores in La Crosse and other cities.
“In this town, you’re either retired or you
work in La Crosse,” Alan said. “Although some
people work in Lansing.” Still, the meat market has
survived for 120 years. “It’s not hard (to
survive) if you’re willing to work,” Kelley
said. “We have always done all right,” Shirley
said. “We haven’t become millionaires.
“We’re still here," she said. “So
many people stop by and say ‘We heard you went out
of business 10 years ago,’” she said, laughing.
~La Crosse Tribune, La Crosse, WI, May 15, 2000
~contributed by Errin Wilker
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