In early 1972, a group of 21 and 22 year olds formed a political commune with the
intention of doing social change community organizing in the working class area of
south Minneapolis. There were 5 women and 4 men. Half of the group had met in
Catholic high schools in the East Metro, the remainder had met in college urban
studies programs in Chicago and Minneapolis.
They decided to begin by organizing a food store in the area south of Lake Street.
Community meetings were held in the basement of Walker Church and the basic model of
the store was hammered out. It was organized as a Minnesota nonprofit corporation
“to promote the health and welfare of the community served and the populace at large
through the sale and distribution of wholesome, natural and whole grain foods in an
ecologically sound manner permitting the highest degree of customer self-control
over quality and content of basic nutrition” (Powderhorn Food Community, Inc.
Articles of Incorporation, February 23, 1972. Minnesota Secretary of State File
J-984).
The original board included three women from the commune and two people from the
neighborhood. The store opened in May of 1972 on a shoestring budget. Initial funds
were raised from promissory notes sold in the neighborhood. The commune members
loaned half the money and performed almost all of the remodeling and installation of
the equipment in a rented storefront at 3440 Bloomington Ave South.
Although called a co-op, the store was not structured as a consumer owned
cooperative. It was a nonprofit corporation run completely by volunteers, first
primarily the commune members, then gradually incorporating most of the shoppers.
There were no paid staff for the first three years. Goods were marked up 10% of cost
for seniors and store volunteer workers and 30% for all others.
Management of the store was organized by work groups who covered their specific
tasks. There were 7 storekeeper groups, one for each day of the week. There were
cheese cutter, bookkeeping, and produce purchasing, maintenance and stocking groups.
All told about 200 people were active in running the store.
Decision-making in the store was cumbersome but effective as store-wide decisions had
to be considered in each work group's monthly planning meeting. Store operational
management decisions, on the other hand, were easily handled by the responsible work
group. The result was a robust community store with many stakeholders.
The commune dispersed after a year. By then, Powderhorn Food Community was viable and
functioning on its own. Most of the commune members continued participating and
working in the store. Some went on to form the Women's Union, others worked on a
plan for a Southside community bank and cooperative housing. By late 1974, some had
joined the nascent Coop Organization (CO), while others rejected both it and the
alternative anarchist formations, opting for a third way. Powderhorn Food Community
membership did not take a position supporting the CO. Nor did it join the boycott of
the People's Warehouse after it was taken over by the CO in May of 1975. In the
summer of 1975, with the original core group tied up in other projects, Powderhorn
hired its first coordinator. A membership election was held to replace the
placeholder board created at the founding. This new board was sympathetic to CO as
was the coordinator.
In 1976, non-CO co-op members staged a break in of the store, changed the locks, and
installed a new cash register; effectively negating the CO's control of the
store.
During the early 1980s, when many co-ops around Minnesota closed or restructured due
to the economic recession, Powderhorn's board chose to restructure the store along
traditional management lines; no longer was the store collectively run. A general
manager, who was given nearly complete control of the store, was hired. The co-op
operated for nearly ten years with a top-down decision making process. In 1985 the
co-op remodeled and expanded its building using a loan from the Minneapolis
Community Development Agency (MCDA) and took a second mortgage on the building and
land through the North Country Development Fund (NCDF) shortly after. In March 1992
the co-op returned to collective management in an effort to get itself out of
financial difficulties and reintegrate itself in the community. By the time the
store returned to collective management it had outstanding debt of $40,000 to MCDA
and NCDF plus $8,000 in back taxes. When the financial accounts were reconciled, the
collective uncovered an additional $39,000 of debt to vendors.
The co-op's difficulties were compounded by a number of factors. Poor management,
little community or volunteer involvement, lack of a well-defined money management
system, and a decline in the neighborhood all combined to push Powderhorn towards
closing. During 1992 the storefront was robbed more than six times. Because of the
long running debt to vendors the co-op was refused credit and could not buy goods
unless cash was paid at delivery. At the time when the co-op was trying to give
itself a stronger presence in the community, raise funds, and increase membership to
pay down its debt it had nearly empty shelves because it could not afford
merchandise. Additionally, Bloomington Avenue, which the storefront faced, underwent
major road construction that blocked the store entrance and parking during the
summer and fall of 1992.
Powderhorn's leadership during its last three years tried hard to keep the co-op
afloat. They sketched out a plan to repay the taxes over a three year period,
diversify the food products to include popular processed foods, fund raise, work
with MCDA to refinance the debt, and set a sales target of $9,000 weekly in order to
meet expenses. In cooperation with North Country Co-op (Minneapolis), Powderhorn
Co-op was able to place small orders with vendors. Other community cooperatives
tried to help as well; the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater and Riverside
Cafe held benefit events to raise money. The co-op wanted to be committed to the
neighborhood, which was already one of Minneapolis' most blighted neighborhoods. By
1993 the neighborhood had already lost three of its chain grocery stores. The
co-op's leaders recognized that the community needed the co-op as much as the co-op
needed neighborhood involvement. In the end, Powderhorn's plan could not be carried
out; in summer 1994 sales were 82% of the previous year's and they could not meet
their expenses. In December 1994 the Powderhorn Food Community Co-op ceased
operations.
This historical sketch was a collaborative effort with
information supplied by Mark Sherman, a founding member of the Powderhorn Food
Community.
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Board of directors, collective, and annual member meeting minutes; correspondence;
flyers; newspaper clippings; and financial records of a food cooperative in the
Powderhorn Park neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota. A small quantity of flyers
and statements pertain to the co-op wars of 1975-1976, in which Powderhorn Food
Community Co-op was involved. There are also records of the store operations in the
form of daily logs. A portion of the records address the board's efforts to keep the
co-op from closing due to financial problems in the early 1990s.
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Availability:
The collection is open for research use.
Preferred Citation:
[Indicate the cited item and/or series here].
Powderhorn Food Community Co-op Records. Minnesota Historical Society.
See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional
examples.
Accession Information:
Accession number: 15,557; 16,198
Processing Information:
Processed by: Lynn Leitte, July 2002; Meagan Kellom, March 2011
Processing and cataloging of this collection was supported with a Basic Project
grant awarded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission
(NHPRC).
Catalog ID number: 990017375870104294
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