Ramm’s Meat Market

Here is an undated photograph of Ramm’s Meat Market in Sandusky, Ohio. The market looks neat and clean -- perhaps the photo was taken when the business location opened.You can see scales and meat cutting equipment behind the counter. Note the embossed tiles along the walls. 

Bruno Ramm, a native of Germany, was the proprietor of a meat market at 418 Decatur Street in the 1910s.  Around 1922, he moved to a new location at 1021 Tiffin Avenue. An advertisement in the May 26, 1922 issue of the Sandusky Star Journal stated that customers should phone in their meat orders early in the day, in order to ensure prompt delivery. This ad appeared in the Sandusky Star Journal on June 16 of that same year:

The Ramm family resided at 1023 Tiffin Avenue, next to the meat market at 1021 Tiffin Avenue. On July 6, 1934, Bruno Ramm died at the age of 61. An obituary for Mr. Ramm, which appeared in the July 7, 1934 issue of the Sandusky Star Journal, stated that Bruno Ramm was one of Sandusky’s best known men and he had been engaged in the butcher business in Sandusky all of his life. Bruno Ramm was survived by his wife, a daughter, a grandchild, as well as a sister and brother. Mr. Ramm was buried at Sandusky’s Oakland Cemetery. 

From about 1941 to 1952, George Polta ran a meat market 1021 Tiffin Avenue. In the 1960s, Zam and Cousino Florists was in operation at the site of the former Ramm Meat Market.

George Knapp and Knapp Dressed Beef

George J. Knapp, Sr. was born in Germany in 1849, and settled in Sandusky in 1867. Mr. Knapp started a meat business on Decatur Street in 1870. By 1886 Knapp had  moved his business to Camp Street. A listing in the 1898 Sandusky City Directory stated that George Knapp was a wholesale and retail dealer in fresh, salt, and smoked meats and sausages of all kinds. The meat market was at 509 Market Street  and the Knapp family resided at 522 Camp Street. In the early 1900s, the business was known as the People’s Meat Market.

   

In 1904 the name of the business became the Knapp Dressed Beef Company, with George Knapp,Sr. serving as president; Charles Knapp, vice president; and Emma Knapp, secretary-treasurer; and George J. Knapp, Jr. as assistant manager.

        

A newspaper advertisement from the Sandusky Star Journal of July 31, 1911, stated that employees at Knapp Dressed Beef  did their own slaughtering of livestock, so that the meat they sold was absolutely fresh.

George J. Knapp, Sr. continued in the family business until his retirement in 1922. Mr. Knapp passed away on September 17, 1926. He was survived by four sons and four daughters. Mrs. Barbara Knapp had predeceased her husband in 1909. Funeral services for George J. Knapp, Sr. were held at the Charles J. Andres Sons’ Funeral Home, and burial was at Oakland Cemetery. An obituary for George J. Knapp, Sr. is found in the 1926 Obituary Notebook at the Sandusky Library.

Zipfel’s Meat Market

Constantine Zipfel founded a meat business in Sandusky. It was in operation from the 1860’s through the early 1900’s. Pictured below is the Zipfel Meat Market in the 1890’s.

Constantine Zipfel was born in Norsingen, Baden (Germany) on May 21, 1839. He married Mary Daniel on December 31, 1858. Constantine and Mary were the parents of seven children, all born in Ohio: Carl, Joseph, Elise, Marie, Ida, Laura, and Alfred. Mrs. Mary Zipfel passed away on January 28, 1886. Constantine married Catherine Liess, and they had a son named Wilbert in 1889. Constantine Zipfel died on June 3, 1894, after he had unsuccessfully sought health in the spas of Germany. He is buried in St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetery in Sandusky. One of the original bells at St. Mary’s Church was the gift of Constantine Zipfel.

An image of Constantine Zipfel appears on Plate III, Image 1, in Sandusky Einst und Jetzt, by Ernst Von Schulenburg. This title was translated into English by Norbert Adolph and Marion Cleaveland Lange in 1959. See Sandusky Then and Now, available at the Sandusky Library, to read more about the early German residents of Sandusky. An every-name index helps researchers find specific names easily. Ernst von Schulenburg wrote in the preface to the second edition of Sandusky Einst und Jetzt, about the early German residents of Sandusky, “They are indeed dead-yet they still live.”