In 2006, when J.C. Baldridge Lumber Company, founded in 1881, announced it was being bought by an out-of-town corporation, HAI members were motivated to collect the history of such long-time companies before it is lost. These businesses bring critcal goods and services to our citizens, thus enabling our city to grow.
We began a project to collect and preserve the history, along with photographs, of these well-known, and not so well known, Albuquerque businesses. These company biographies will be given to:
- Albuquerque Museum
- New Mexico State Records and Archives
- University of New Mexico Center for Southwest Research
- Albuquerque Special Collections Library
To date, Historic Albuquerque has collected the history of over 50 long-time businesses at no cost to the project participants. Some of the companies include:
- J.C. Baldridge Lumber Company
- Berger Briggs Real Estate
- Bradbury Stamm Construction Company
- Buffett’s Candies
- Darrow’s Ice Cream
- Durand Motor Company
- KHFM Radio
- Kistler Collister department store
- People’s Flower Shops
- Old Town Basket Shop
- Ruppe’s Drug
- Skip Maisel’s
- Springer Transfer Company
- Super Service Station and Tire Company
- Westernair
Samples of these histories will be provided on our website soon.
If your company has been/was in operation for at least 25 years (it does not have to be currently in business), and you would like to contribute your company’s information to our project, please contact us at: HistoricAbq@aol.com.