Located in Haddonfield, NJ
Vintage wooden Runkel chocolate crate box with graphics and dovetail detailing. Born in the early 1850s in New Orleans to a German father and French mother with a garment business in the French Quarter, brothers Louis and Herman Runkel arrive in New York. Departing from the family trade, the brothers began making chocolate in Staten Island in the early 1870s. Their 1876 advertisement offered, “For sale, cheap – a five horsepower upright boiler and engine… now running in a chocolate factory,” marks the Runkels’ move from the island where they produced chocolate and cocoa for two years. The brothers then operated a factory uptown at 230 West 30th Street near today’s Penn Station. The first of three major fires afflicting the company over a span of three decades occurred in December 1879. The move to 445 West 30th Street in 1888 would result in a permanent headquarters for the Runkels, where a factory remained into the 1930s; it was rebuilt after a three-alarm fire in 1901 destroyed the original six-story structure. Runkel became known for their Red Ribbon, Vienna Sweet Chocolate, and Chocolat des Marquises, among other proprietary bars and cocoa powder products. Runkel’s tagline was, “I want it, I’ll get it, right in it,” and eventually shortened to, “Right in it.” A popular consumer brand, Runkel Brothers was also one of the first to widely market wholesale liquor and coatings to smaller confectioners. This vintage crate...
Category
American Industrial Vintage 1930s Magazine Racks and Stands