Interior view, Credjafawn Co-op Store, 678 Rondo, St. Paul. ca 198. Locator no. HF4.6 p7, Negative no. 20099. © Minnesota Historical Society Collection. To truly understand the power of cooperatives, we must recognize, share, and celebrate contributions to the movement by a multitude of races and cultures, especially those…
Interior view, Credjafawn Co-op Store, 678 Rondo, St. Paul. ca 198. Locator no. HF4.6 p7, Negative no. 20099. © Minnesota Historical Society Collection. Lively photographs of Credjafawn Co-op from 1948 document a tidy, well-equipped corner store with white-painted porcelain cases, a two-tiered air-conditioned produce display backed…
Most Twin Cities food co-op members associate the growth of local grocery co-ops with the 1960–1975 period, during which many of our region's existing stores began. A notable exception to the 1960s food co-op movement was the Credjafawn Co-op Store, which briefly served the Rondo community in the years immediately following World War II. Its freestanding building at 678 Rondo Avenue, at what was then the corner of Rondo and St. Albans, lay only four blocks northwest of today’s Mississippi Market location on the corner of Selby and Dale. Lively photographs of the Credjafawn Co-op from 1948 document a tidy, well-equipped corner store with white-painted porcelain cases, a two-tiered air-conditioned produce display backed by tall mirrors, and grocery carts small enough to thread their way through narrow aisles packed with fresh food for sale. The Co-op’s two large street-facing windows were partly papered with posters featuring the familiar twin-pines logo of the National Cooperative Business Association, which also served as Mississippi Market 's logo for a short period of time.