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Discover the Story Behind Our Shop
Learn how our journey began and what inspires our curated collections today.
The other side of the store. Note the counter - while the original counter is gone - we salvaged a counter which is nearly identical and dates to the same time period
A happy accident - we found this photo on a Facebook History group - it show the store as “Pollari and Savage” when deliveries were made by horse and buggy
The earliest photo of the store we were able to find. This one dates to sometime in 1894 - before the tin ceiling went on.
A little breadcrumb found in the newspaper archives - regarding the switch from Peterson Brothers to Savage and Pollari
This gem is from a Finnish Daily Newspaper - it states “Farmers Attention! Bring your butter, eggs, potatoes and other farm products to our store to sell. We are happy if we can pay the highest price or exchange your food for merchandise.
A Bakery once adjoined the store in the next door lot. We have heard from many folks who enjoyed the freshly baked Italian Bread, hard rolls and delicious cakes
History is a funny thing….
When David and I purchased the building at 428 E. McLeod Avenue, we didn’t feel like “owners” but almost immediately had a connection to the place as its temporary caretakers. At the time we bought the store, the city records claimed the building was from 1910, yet somehow that didn’t quite fit. It took years of digging and finding new old records to show that the building was likely built sometime around 1893 or perhaps earlier.
I’ve always been a history buff, and sometimes the history of the ordinary, the day-to-day, the mundane, if you will, isn’t easy to piece together. Many folks who come into our shop talk about shopping here as kids at Jack’s Foods. Some older folks remember the place as Pollari’s, but the history of the building goes much further.
A trail of breadcrumbs at the Ironwood Carnegie Library and more research at the Ironwood Historical Society uncovered this: the earliest mention of a grocery store located at 428 E. McLeod — 1893. Olson Brothers.
After that came J.N. Peterson, W.G. Peterson in 1910, Peterson Brothers around 1916, Savage and Pollari in 1921, then Pollari Food Shop. It remained that way for a long time until sometime in the 1950s or 60s, when it became Food Shops, Inc., until John T. Bennett’s opened Jack’s Foods, which operated until 1985 under him. Later, in October of 1985, it changed ownership to Vern Peterson. I am not sure when it closed for good, but in 1992 there is a mention of the corner of the building being damaged in a hit-and-run accident. The history becomes muddy after that, but we are pretty proud to be the next in a long line of caretakers of this storied place.
Ads in digitized newspaper archives give us a clue, but the icing on the cake is the oldest photos I found from the very earliest days of the store — before the tin ceiling went on — probably 1893 or 1894.
The thing about history is how quickly it can vanish. The folks who knew it pass away, and photos are lost and forgotten. I’m grateful for what I’ve been able to uncover thus far and look forward to filling the gaps. Maybe one day I’ll come across a photo cache. You just never know!
A little bit about us:
David was born in Ohio, grew up in Central Wisconsin, moved to the UP in 2003 to pursue his passion for chainsaw wood carving, settling in Wakefield, MI in a house built by Nick “The one eyed logger” and his wife Sally “the fortune teller”. It was his idea to buy a building in Ironwood - and the rest is history!
Eva was born in Poland, grew up in Chicago, moved to Canada, back to Chicago, and ended up in Ironwood in 2001 through a set of almost comical circumstances.
She married David in 2005 and together opened Paper Moon in September of 2021.
Our Journey to the Paper Moon
Paper Moon Mercantile had a meandering way of coming into existence. In December of 2018, we purchased a building at 428 E. McLeod in Ironwood. The building was in pretty sad shape - and we wouldn’t find out how sad until we cleared out over a ton of random junk - bed frames, mattresses, old insulation, a trash bag filled with about 30 hardhats, over 10,000 romance novels, dishes, bags of insulation, a truck full of vintage vinyl trim and so much more. Once the trash was out - the true state of the building could be assessed - and it was pretty rough. We, however, had rose colored glasses and a dream. The dream changed along the way - thanks to Covid and life and in September of 2021 we opened doors as The Paper Moon Mercantile - a little gift store filled with fun and unique items - and in the process - saved a building which served as a neighborhood grocery store since 1894.