LE CENTER FIRM DOES $1,000,000 MAIL BUSINESS
By George Hellickson
When Frank Spors injured his back, it was a lucky break for Le Center, Minn.
The injury forced him to give up the idea of becoming a farmer. Advised to look for "lighter work," he took to the road and the road led to Le Center where today, as head of Spors Co., "wholesaler or over 4,000 tested fast sellers," he and his wife employ one out. of every seven of the town's 1,400 residents. The annual payroll Is $160,000.
Spors Co. is a strange contradiction of modern merchandising genius in an atmosphere reminiscent of an oldtime country store at the wholesale level. Only conflict in the picture is a recently modernized display room. The new display room Is Spors Co.'s one luxury rather than a necessity of doing business. Probably 90 percent of Its $1,000,000 annual volume is done by mail orders from its catalog.
CATALOG IS SIMPLE
Its catalog, which would never win a graphic arts prize, is mailed semi-annually to approximately 200,000 dealers, specialty salesmen, merchants, premium users and distributors. Its 260 pages are printed on cheap paper in plain black and white in contrast with the four colors so liberally used by its urban competitors.
But never let it he said that its pages lack sales appeal. Proof that they don't is orders currently coming in at the rate of 1,500 a day and being filled at a corresponding rate.
Shipping clerks fill 500 mail bags daily with parcel post. Outlining freight last month totaled 100,000 pounds, express another 48,000 pounds.
Facilities that handle this merchandising load have growing pains that would bring tears of pity from the hardest-boiled civilian production administration board.
POSTOFFICE IS HANDY
A convenience that any large volume user of the mails would envy, however, is the Le Center postoffice, sharing one of the Spors buildings with a window opening into the company's shipping room.
Postmaster Theodore Zimmerman is only too happy to offer the mailing convenience. The volume of mail handled determines his salary. Spors Co. business, gives the office its "first class'' rating. It handles only slightly less mail than offices in Bemidji or Brainerd, cities six times the size of Le Center.
Spors Co. operations are housed in three former retail store building that have a 100-foot frontage on Minnesota street, and in a three-story warehouse. The company has 62,500 square feet of floor space, every square inch of it in use.
In addition to its wholesaling of general merchandise, it manufactures a stocking darner, water heater, cosmetics and extracts. It also operates its own printing shop and a department for greeting cards and gift wrapping paper assembly. There isn't a conveyor belt in the plate; neither is there a mahogany desk.
BOSS HELPS OUT
Offices, occupying the ground floor of one of the former store buildings, are partitioned off to head height with wall board. In the center is the mail order receiving desk at which the big boss himself is to be found more often than not, assisting six clerks opening the daily mail.
Principal executives are Frank Spors, gmeral manager; his wife, Esther, assistant general manager; Clark B. Foss, operating manager; Carroll Stenson. production manager; Albert Spors, a brother, merchandising manager; and Joe Tatosky, advertising manager and order supervisor.
A second of the former stores Is the display room patronized chiefly by dealers from nearby towns. The ground floor of the third building is occupied in front by the postoffice tenant; in the rear by order filling, packaging and mailing rooms.
COSMETICS PRODUCED
The basement floors of the three buildings are devoted in part to stock, in part to manufacturing of the lines of cosmetics, extracts, perfume bottling. A liquid cement is still another of the company's products.
Connected with the store buildings by a catwalk, the warehouse houses the company's own electric power plant, the printing shop and greeting card department. Balance of the space is filled to the roof with goods valued at approximately $320,000.
All of this had its beginning 25 years ago when Frank Spors, after some years of peddling a fountain pen to anyone anywhere he happened to he at the moment, had built his personal sales to the point where a headquarter was indicated. His first office was in his home.
It was the office of "United States Wholesalers and Distributors of Famous Glass-Pointed Fountain Pens." The fancy title was one he invented for his business card on which also was printed, "Agents Wanted."
SCHEME REALLY WORKED
To the buyer of every pen he sold he handed one of the cards. He made 50 cents on a $1 sale and at the same time made the buyer a prospective agent of the product. The stunt worked.
When he had the nucleus of a sales force for the pens, he added a raincoat io his salesmen's line. Today his sales outlets total almost 200,000 and the line has some 4,000 individual items.
Three-line ads in the classified section of the Minneapolis Tribune also helped build the sales force. Simple circulars preceded today's catalog. Spors buying policy is to contact every manufacturer of a wanted item in the country and get the most favorable price on quantity purchase.
Merchandise that is slow in turnover goes into what is known within the organization as "the country store." "Mystery boxes," containing "surprise bargains," are made up with 70 tabs on the front. Dealers' customers pay 10 cents to pull a number which determines the prize package they receive. Advertised as "not a gamble," it also is not a bad way of disposing of white elephant merchandise at the rate of approximately $200,000 a year.
MEANT TO BE A FARMER
Founder Spors, at 56, looks and acts the part of a smalltown merchant rather than the shrewd million-dollar merchandiser he is.
Son of farmer parents, Mr. and Mrs. August Spors of Rosen, Minn., where his mother still lives, he says he had no intention of being anything but a farmer in his younger years.
"At least selling was the last thing I wanted to do," he asserts, adding, "I was naturally shy."
But he sold six of the $1 Japanese imported gass point pens his first day. That was a net of $3 and "a lot of money" then, he says.
Le Center Is home for Spors and his company, and an offer of a $250,000 building for $25,000 some years back went by default when Le Center business men assisted in financing Spors Co. expansion. He met his business partner-wife at Nassau, Minn., where he worked for a short time in a grocery store. They were married in 1925 and have two children, Corinne, 19, a student at St. Catherine's college in St. Paul, and Richard Keith, 18, former marine and student now at MacPhail School of Music.
Photo captions:
This is Le Center's Frank Spors, 56, owner of the Spors Co., in a typical dictating pose at the desk in his office. Spors does a $1,000,000 annual business and employs one out of every seven of the town's residents.
This is the mail order receiving desk. Standing at left is Mrs. Frank Spors, wife of the owner and assistant general manager of the company. Standing at right is Spors. Behind him is Albert Spors, brother and merchandising manager.
A "mystery box" containing "surprise bargains" is being made in the "country store" by Ann Butler, who has worked for the firm for 23 years, and Esther Hinze (second in line), department manager. Customer draws number from box at left.
A front section of the Spors Co. building is the town's postoffice. Here Spors' mail is being weighed, and handed into the postoffice by Richard McCourtney to Chris Gish, postoffice clerk.
— Minneapolis Tribune, Nov. 24, 1946
By George Hellickson
When Frank Spors injured his back, it was a lucky break for Le Center, Minn.
The injury forced him to give up the idea of becoming a farmer. Advised to look for "lighter work," he took to the road and the road led to Le Center where today, as head of Spors Co., "wholesaler or over 4,000 tested fast sellers," he and his wife employ one out. of every seven of the town's 1,400 residents. The annual payroll Is $160,000.
Spors Co. is a strange contradiction of modern merchandising genius in an atmosphere reminiscent of an oldtime country store at the wholesale level. Only conflict in the picture is a recently modernized display room. The new display room Is Spors Co.'s one luxury rather than a necessity of doing business. Probably 90 percent of Its $1,000,000 annual volume is done by mail orders from its catalog.
CATALOG IS SIMPLE
Its catalog, which would never win a graphic arts prize, is mailed semi-annually to approximately 200,000 dealers, specialty salesmen, merchants, premium users and distributors. Its 260 pages are printed on cheap paper in plain black and white in contrast with the four colors so liberally used by its urban competitors.
But never let it he said that its pages lack sales appeal. Proof that they don't is orders currently coming in at the rate of 1,500 a day and being filled at a corresponding rate.
Shipping clerks fill 500 mail bags daily with parcel post. Outlining freight last month totaled 100,000 pounds, express another 48,000 pounds.
Facilities that handle this merchandising load have growing pains that would bring tears of pity from the hardest-boiled civilian production administration board.
POSTOFFICE IS HANDY
A convenience that any large volume user of the mails would envy, however, is the Le Center postoffice, sharing one of the Spors buildings with a window opening into the company's shipping room.
Postmaster Theodore Zimmerman is only too happy to offer the mailing convenience. The volume of mail handled determines his salary. Spors Co. business, gives the office its "first class'' rating. It handles only slightly less mail than offices in Bemidji or Brainerd, cities six times the size of Le Center.
Spors Co. operations are housed in three former retail store building that have a 100-foot frontage on Minnesota street, and in a three-story warehouse. The company has 62,500 square feet of floor space, every square inch of it in use.
In addition to its wholesaling of general merchandise, it manufactures a stocking darner, water heater, cosmetics and extracts. It also operates its own printing shop and a department for greeting cards and gift wrapping paper assembly. There isn't a conveyor belt in the plate; neither is there a mahogany desk.
BOSS HELPS OUT
Offices, occupying the ground floor of one of the former store buildings, are partitioned off to head height with wall board. In the center is the mail order receiving desk at which the big boss himself is to be found more often than not, assisting six clerks opening the daily mail.
Principal executives are Frank Spors, gmeral manager; his wife, Esther, assistant general manager; Clark B. Foss, operating manager; Carroll Stenson. production manager; Albert Spors, a brother, merchandising manager; and Joe Tatosky, advertising manager and order supervisor.
A second of the former stores Is the display room patronized chiefly by dealers from nearby towns. The ground floor of the third building is occupied in front by the postoffice tenant; in the rear by order filling, packaging and mailing rooms.
COSMETICS PRODUCED
The basement floors of the three buildings are devoted in part to stock, in part to manufacturing of the lines of cosmetics, extracts, perfume bottling. A liquid cement is still another of the company's products.
Connected with the store buildings by a catwalk, the warehouse houses the company's own electric power plant, the printing shop and greeting card department. Balance of the space is filled to the roof with goods valued at approximately $320,000.
All of this had its beginning 25 years ago when Frank Spors, after some years of peddling a fountain pen to anyone anywhere he happened to he at the moment, had built his personal sales to the point where a headquarter was indicated. His first office was in his home.
It was the office of "United States Wholesalers and Distributors of Famous Glass-Pointed Fountain Pens." The fancy title was one he invented for his business card on which also was printed, "Agents Wanted."
SCHEME REALLY WORKED
To the buyer of every pen he sold he handed one of the cards. He made 50 cents on a $1 sale and at the same time made the buyer a prospective agent of the product. The stunt worked.
When he had the nucleus of a sales force for the pens, he added a raincoat io his salesmen's line. Today his sales outlets total almost 200,000 and the line has some 4,000 individual items.
Three-line ads in the classified section of the Minneapolis Tribune also helped build the sales force. Simple circulars preceded today's catalog. Spors buying policy is to contact every manufacturer of a wanted item in the country and get the most favorable price on quantity purchase.
Merchandise that is slow in turnover goes into what is known within the organization as "the country store." "Mystery boxes," containing "surprise bargains," are made up with 70 tabs on the front. Dealers' customers pay 10 cents to pull a number which determines the prize package they receive. Advertised as "not a gamble," it also is not a bad way of disposing of white elephant merchandise at the rate of approximately $200,000 a year.
MEANT TO BE A FARMER
Founder Spors, at 56, looks and acts the part of a smalltown merchant rather than the shrewd million-dollar merchandiser he is.
Son of farmer parents, Mr. and Mrs. August Spors of Rosen, Minn., where his mother still lives, he says he had no intention of being anything but a farmer in his younger years.
"At least selling was the last thing I wanted to do," he asserts, adding, "I was naturally shy."
But he sold six of the $1 Japanese imported gass point pens his first day. That was a net of $3 and "a lot of money" then, he says.
Le Center Is home for Spors and his company, and an offer of a $250,000 building for $25,000 some years back went by default when Le Center business men assisted in financing Spors Co. expansion. He met his business partner-wife at Nassau, Minn., where he worked for a short time in a grocery store. They were married in 1925 and have two children, Corinne, 19, a student at St. Catherine's college in St. Paul, and Richard Keith, 18, former marine and student now at MacPhail School of Music.
Photo captions:
This is Le Center's Frank Spors, 56, owner of the Spors Co., in a typical dictating pose at the desk in his office. Spors does a $1,000,000 annual business and employs one out of every seven of the town's residents.
This is the mail order receiving desk. Standing at left is Mrs. Frank Spors, wife of the owner and assistant general manager of the company. Standing at right is Spors. Behind him is Albert Spors, brother and merchandising manager.
A "mystery box" containing "surprise bargains" is being made in the "country store" by Ann Butler, who has worked for the firm for 23 years, and Esther Hinze (second in line), department manager. Customer draws number from box at left.
A front section of the Spors Co. building is the town's postoffice. Here Spors' mail is being weighed, and handed into the postoffice by Richard McCourtney to Chris Gish, postoffice clerk.
— Minneapolis Tribune, Nov. 24, 1946
LE CENTER FIRM DOES $1,000,000 MAIL BUSINESS
By George Hellickson
When Frank Spors injured his back, it was a lucky break for Le Center, Minn.
The injury forced him to give up the idea of becoming a farmer. Advised to look for "lighter work," he took to the road and the road led to Le Center where today, as head of Spors Co., "wholesaler or over 4,000 tested fast sellers," he and his wife employ one out. of every seven of the town's 1,400 residents. The annual payroll Is $160,000.
Spors Co. is a strange contradiction of modern merchandising genius in an atmosphere reminiscent of an oldtime country store at the wholesale level. Only conflict in the picture is a recently modernized display room. The new display room Is Spors Co.'s one luxury rather than a necessity of doing business. Probably 90 percent of Its $1,000,000 annual volume is done by mail orders from its catalog.
CATALOG IS SIMPLE
Its catalog, which would never win a graphic arts prize, is mailed semi-annually to approximately 200,000 dealers, specialty salesmen, merchants, premium users and distributors. Its 260 pages are printed on cheap paper in plain black and white in contrast with the four colors so liberally used by its urban competitors.
But never let it he said that its pages lack sales appeal. Proof that they don't is orders currently coming in at the rate of 1,500 a day and being filled at a corresponding rate.
Shipping clerks fill 500 mail bags daily with parcel post. Outlining freight last month totaled 100,000 pounds, express another 48,000 pounds.
Facilities that handle this merchandising load have growing pains that would bring tears of pity from the hardest-boiled civilian production administration board.
POSTOFFICE IS HANDY
A convenience that any large volume user of the mails would envy, however, is the Le Center postoffice, sharing one of the Spors buildings with a window opening into the company's shipping room.
Postmaster Theodore Zimmerman is only too happy to offer the mailing convenience. The volume of mail handled determines his salary. Spors Co. business, gives the office its "first class'' rating. It handles only slightly less mail than offices in Bemidji or Brainerd, cities six times the size of Le Center.
Spors Co. operations are housed in three former retail store building that have a 100-foot frontage on Minnesota street, and in a three-story warehouse. The company has 62,500 square feet of floor space, every square inch of it in use.
In addition to its wholesaling of general merchandise, it manufactures a stocking darner, water heater, cosmetics and extracts. It also operates its own printing shop and a department for greeting cards and gift wrapping paper assembly. There isn't a conveyor belt in the plate; neither is there a mahogany desk.
BOSS HELPS OUT
Offices, occupying the ground floor of one of the former store buildings, are partitioned off to head height with wall board. In the center is the mail order receiving desk at which the big boss himself is to be found more often than not, assisting six clerks opening the daily mail.
Principal executives are Frank Spors, gmeral manager; his wife, Esther, assistant general manager; Clark B. Foss, operating manager; Carroll Stenson. production manager; Albert Spors, a brother, merchandising manager; and Joe Tatosky, advertising manager and order supervisor.
A second of the former stores Is the display room patronized chiefly by dealers from nearby towns. The ground floor of the third building is occupied in front by the postoffice tenant; in the rear by order filling, packaging and mailing rooms.
COSMETICS PRODUCED
The basement floors of the three buildings are devoted in part to stock, in part to manufacturing of the lines of cosmetics, extracts, perfume bottling. A liquid cement is still another of the company's products.
Connected with the store buildings by a catwalk, the warehouse houses the company's own electric power plant, the printing shop and greeting card department. Balance of the space is filled to the roof with goods valued at approximately $320,000.
All of this had its beginning 25 years ago when Frank Spors, after some years of peddling a fountain pen to anyone anywhere he happened to he at the moment, had built his personal sales to the point where a headquarter was indicated. His first office was in his home.
It was the office of "United States Wholesalers and Distributors of Famous Glass-Pointed Fountain Pens." The fancy title was one he invented for his business card on which also was printed, "Agents Wanted."
SCHEME REALLY WORKED
To the buyer of every pen he sold he handed one of the cards. He made 50 cents on a $1 sale and at the same time made the buyer a prospective agent of the product. The stunt worked.
When he had the nucleus of a sales force for the pens, he added a raincoat io his salesmen's line. Today his sales outlets total almost 200,000 and the line has some 4,000 individual items.
Three-line ads in the classified section of the Minneapolis Tribune also helped build the sales force. Simple circulars preceded today's catalog. Spors buying policy is to contact every manufacturer of a wanted item in the country and get the most favorable price on quantity purchase.
Merchandise that is slow in turnover goes into what is known within the organization as "the country store." "Mystery boxes," containing "surprise bargains," are made up with 70 tabs on the front. Dealers' customers pay 10 cents to pull a number which determines the prize package they receive. Advertised as "not a gamble," it also is not a bad way of disposing of white elephant merchandise at the rate of approximately $200,000 a year.
MEANT TO BE A FARMER
Founder Spors, at 56, looks and acts the part of a smalltown merchant rather than the shrewd million-dollar merchandiser he is.
Son of farmer parents, Mr. and Mrs. August Spors of Rosen, Minn., where his mother still lives, he says he had no intention of being anything but a farmer in his younger years.
"At least selling was the last thing I wanted to do," he asserts, adding, "I was naturally shy."
But he sold six of the $1 Japanese imported gass point pens his first day. That was a net of $3 and "a lot of money" then, he says.
Le Center Is home for Spors and his company, and an offer of a $250,000 building for $25,000 some years back went by default when Le Center business men assisted in financing Spors Co. expansion. He met his business partner-wife at Nassau, Minn., where he worked for a short time in a grocery store. They were married in 1925 and have two children, Corinne, 19, a student at St. Catherine's college in St. Paul, and Richard Keith, 18, former marine and student now at MacPhail School of Music.
Photo captions:
This is Le Center's Frank Spors, 56, owner of the Spors Co., in a typical dictating pose at the desk in his office. Spors does a $1,000,000 annual business and employs one out of every seven of the town's residents.
This is the mail order receiving desk. Standing at left is Mrs. Frank Spors, wife of the owner and assistant general manager of the company. Standing at right is Spors. Behind him is Albert Spors, brother and merchandising manager.
A "mystery box" containing "surprise bargains" is being made in the "country store" by Ann Butler, who has worked for the firm for 23 years, and Esther Hinze (second in line), department manager. Customer draws number from box at left.
A front section of the Spors Co. building is the town's postoffice. Here Spors' mail is being weighed, and handed into the postoffice by Richard McCourtney to Chris Gish, postoffice clerk.
— Minneapolis Tribune, Nov. 24, 1946
By George Hellickson
When Frank Spors injured his back, it was a lucky break for Le Center, Minn.
The injury forced him to give up the idea of becoming a farmer. Advised to look for "lighter work," he took to the road and the road led to Le Center where today, as head of Spors Co., "wholesaler or over 4,000 tested fast sellers," he and his wife employ one out. of every seven of the town's 1,400 residents. The annual payroll Is $160,000.
Spors Co. is a strange contradiction of modern merchandising genius in an atmosphere reminiscent of an oldtime country store at the wholesale level. Only conflict in the picture is a recently modernized display room. The new display room Is Spors Co.'s one luxury rather than a necessity of doing business. Probably 90 percent of Its $1,000,000 annual volume is done by mail orders from its catalog.
CATALOG IS SIMPLE
Its catalog, which would never win a graphic arts prize, is mailed semi-annually to approximately 200,000 dealers, specialty salesmen, merchants, premium users and distributors. Its 260 pages are printed on cheap paper in plain black and white in contrast with the four colors so liberally used by its urban competitors.
But never let it he said that its pages lack sales appeal. Proof that they don't is orders currently coming in at the rate of 1,500 a day and being filled at a corresponding rate.
Shipping clerks fill 500 mail bags daily with parcel post. Outlining freight last month totaled 100,000 pounds, express another 48,000 pounds.
Facilities that handle this merchandising load have growing pains that would bring tears of pity from the hardest-boiled civilian production administration board.
POSTOFFICE IS HANDY
A convenience that any large volume user of the mails would envy, however, is the Le Center postoffice, sharing one of the Spors buildings with a window opening into the company's shipping room.
Postmaster Theodore Zimmerman is only too happy to offer the mailing convenience. The volume of mail handled determines his salary. Spors Co. business, gives the office its "first class'' rating. It handles only slightly less mail than offices in Bemidji or Brainerd, cities six times the size of Le Center.
Spors Co. operations are housed in three former retail store building that have a 100-foot frontage on Minnesota street, and in a three-story warehouse. The company has 62,500 square feet of floor space, every square inch of it in use.
In addition to its wholesaling of general merchandise, it manufactures a stocking darner, water heater, cosmetics and extracts. It also operates its own printing shop and a department for greeting cards and gift wrapping paper assembly. There isn't a conveyor belt in the plate; neither is there a mahogany desk.
BOSS HELPS OUT
Offices, occupying the ground floor of one of the former store buildings, are partitioned off to head height with wall board. In the center is the mail order receiving desk at which the big boss himself is to be found more often than not, assisting six clerks opening the daily mail.
Principal executives are Frank Spors, gmeral manager; his wife, Esther, assistant general manager; Clark B. Foss, operating manager; Carroll Stenson. production manager; Albert Spors, a brother, merchandising manager; and Joe Tatosky, advertising manager and order supervisor.
A second of the former stores Is the display room patronized chiefly by dealers from nearby towns. The ground floor of the third building is occupied in front by the postoffice tenant; in the rear by order filling, packaging and mailing rooms.
COSMETICS PRODUCED
The basement floors of the three buildings are devoted in part to stock, in part to manufacturing of the lines of cosmetics, extracts, perfume bottling. A liquid cement is still another of the company's products.
Connected with the store buildings by a catwalk, the warehouse houses the company's own electric power plant, the printing shop and greeting card department. Balance of the space is filled to the roof with goods valued at approximately $320,000.
All of this had its beginning 25 years ago when Frank Spors, after some years of peddling a fountain pen to anyone anywhere he happened to he at the moment, had built his personal sales to the point where a headquarter was indicated. His first office was in his home.
It was the office of "United States Wholesalers and Distributors of Famous Glass-Pointed Fountain Pens." The fancy title was one he invented for his business card on which also was printed, "Agents Wanted."
SCHEME REALLY WORKED
To the buyer of every pen he sold he handed one of the cards. He made 50 cents on a $1 sale and at the same time made the buyer a prospective agent of the product. The stunt worked.
When he had the nucleus of a sales force for the pens, he added a raincoat io his salesmen's line. Today his sales outlets total almost 200,000 and the line has some 4,000 individual items.
Three-line ads in the classified section of the Minneapolis Tribune also helped build the sales force. Simple circulars preceded today's catalog. Spors buying policy is to contact every manufacturer of a wanted item in the country and get the most favorable price on quantity purchase.
Merchandise that is slow in turnover goes into what is known within the organization as "the country store." "Mystery boxes," containing "surprise bargains," are made up with 70 tabs on the front. Dealers' customers pay 10 cents to pull a number which determines the prize package they receive. Advertised as "not a gamble," it also is not a bad way of disposing of white elephant merchandise at the rate of approximately $200,000 a year.
MEANT TO BE A FARMER
Founder Spors, at 56, looks and acts the part of a smalltown merchant rather than the shrewd million-dollar merchandiser he is.
Son of farmer parents, Mr. and Mrs. August Spors of Rosen, Minn., where his mother still lives, he says he had no intention of being anything but a farmer in his younger years.
"At least selling was the last thing I wanted to do," he asserts, adding, "I was naturally shy."
But he sold six of the $1 Japanese imported gass point pens his first day. That was a net of $3 and "a lot of money" then, he says.
Le Center Is home for Spors and his company, and an offer of a $250,000 building for $25,000 some years back went by default when Le Center business men assisted in financing Spors Co. expansion. He met his business partner-wife at Nassau, Minn., where he worked for a short time in a grocery store. They were married in 1925 and have two children, Corinne, 19, a student at St. Catherine's college in St. Paul, and Richard Keith, 18, former marine and student now at MacPhail School of Music.
Photo captions:
This is Le Center's Frank Spors, 56, owner of the Spors Co., in a typical dictating pose at the desk in his office. Spors does a $1,000,000 annual business and employs one out of every seven of the town's residents.
This is the mail order receiving desk. Standing at left is Mrs. Frank Spors, wife of the owner and assistant general manager of the company. Standing at right is Spors. Behind him is Albert Spors, brother and merchandising manager.
A "mystery box" containing "surprise bargains" is being made in the "country store" by Ann Butler, who has worked for the firm for 23 years, and Esther Hinze (second in line), department manager. Customer draws number from box at left.
A front section of the Spors Co. building is the town's postoffice. Here Spors' mail is being weighed, and handed into the postoffice by Richard McCourtney to Chris Gish, postoffice clerk.
— Minneapolis Tribune, Nov. 24, 1946
Family Members
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
Records on Ancestry
Advertisement
