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Farewell to Dahl's on Ingersoll

Posted: 16 Mar 2009 19:53
by tesg
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/articl ... ity=dmwest

Dahl's on Ingersoll (3425 Ingersoll Ave) in Des Moines, IA moves into its new building directly behind the old one tomorrow. The article includes a shot of the building when it opened as their second supermarket format store in 1952. It looks nothing like that now.

This was my local Dahl's for 15 years. I've done a lot of shopping at that store. I moved out of the neighborhood just last year as they were starting the new structure.

Although the original structure doesn't resemble its original appearance, it is an interesting building in that, in its current incarceration, had twin fronts. The building had identical tunnel entries on the front and rear to accomodate parking lots on both sides. You could walk in on one side, go straight through in front of the checkouts, and out the identical back side. The back entrance was torn down in April along with the entire rear facade to make space for the front of the new building.

Another unique function in this store was the "Dahl House"...a circular building on the street corner used for grocery pickup. Groceries were transported from the store to this building via an underground tunnel. They discontinued use of this in 1963.

While some facets of the old store were gone today, it was largely intact and busy as ever. I don't think this store has ever NOT been busy. Staffers and possibly customers wrote farewell messages on the walls down the tunnel row. Probably the most clever referred to the new store..."See you in about 80 feet."

I enjoyed taking one last stroll through the aisles.

Here's a picture of the store on its last day...

Image

There are some construction photos at http://www.dahlsfoods.com, but you'll have to make some obvious link fixes (backslash vs foreslash) to see them. The April photos include images of the back side demolition. The old store will be demolished in about six weeks. The new parking lot will then be completed, and a Dahl's Gas will be built on the corner.

Dahl's first supermarket format store still operates in Beaverdale (and also doesn't bear any resemblance to its days gone by).