The writing on the bottom of this lovely old-timey photo says: “Grandpa Anderson in his store”.

On the back it reads: “C J Anderson, Hilbert’s Dad, 2600 Bryant Avenue Mpls. He had this store for many years”.

I believe the man behind the counter is Charles John Anderson (1857-1936), a Swedish immigrant who settled in Minneapolis, Minnesota. According to this death notice, he died in 1936 at the age of 79 leaving his wife, two sons (J.H. and Albin) and a daughter, Amy Hall.

Some initial research on Ancestry leads me to believe that “Hilbert” was in fact the son, J. H[ilbert] Anderson, mentioned in the death notice. Anderson is a VERY popular name in this area at this time so there were some rabbit holes that I chose not to explore.

However, newspaper archive searches yielded some interesting results. It appears that Charles “learned the lessons of banditry” after having his store robbed on at least three occasions. Here are three articles detailing a robbery in 1931.

The cut off portion of this article simply reads: “Anderson said it is the third time he has been held up in two years.”

Here are two addition articles detailing a robbery in 1929.

There was also a robbery in 1930 that received quite a bit of news coverage. It is worth reading through the articles below, but here is the quick version:

Having been robbed in 1929 Charles Anderson had prepared for future instances with a “bandit trap”. In December of 1930 two teenagers successfully robbed Anderson’s store, though not without sustaining buckshot injuries first. They were discovered a few days late, confessed, and one was quickly sentenced to Red Wing Training School as punishment.