New Ulm Trade Center for This Part of State. Drawing Power Is Exceptional.

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UNSTABLE WEATHER AND SNOW CUTS

VISITORS

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Hundreds of Automobiles Filled With Christmas Shoppers Visit New Ulm Past Week.

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New Ulm is the center of a large trade territory in his part of the state. In fact it commands the largest trade zone of any city in southern Minnesota. This is a fact that cannot be disputed. Since the automobile has come into vogue as a means of transporting people, conditions in the retail mercantile activity have greatly changed. The benzine buggy has supplanted “old dobbin” as the means of annihilating space and this adds greatly to the trade territory of any trade center, which goes after rural as well as business from the smaller cities and villages.

Big Christmas Trade

During the past three or four years New Ulm merchants have been almost swamped with pre-Christmas trade. Visitors come for many miles. Automobiles from Tracy, Marshall, Gaylord, Gibbon, Redwood Falls, St. Peter, Mankato, Lake Crystal, St. James, Madelia, Windom and many other places outside Brown county are seen on the streets of New Ulm.

Thousands Left Here

Thousands of dollars are left in New Ulm during December each year by the hundreds of shoppers, who visit the city from a distance. It is impossible to estimate just how much this out-of-town trade amounts to, but it forms a large percentage of the local merchant’s Holiday custom.

Automobile An Asset

The automobile has revolutionized business conditions in New Ulm. Hundreds of shoppers make this city their buying point, who ten years ago hardly ever visited New Ulm. Hundreds more come on stated periods to shop, while hundreds more visit the city once or twice a year. During the past few years the businessmen of New Ulm have changed local conditions in many respects; they have modernized the interiors of their stores and have added new lines to their shelves. Today New Ulm is metropolitan from the standpoint of merchandising.

Poor Weather

December has furnished poor weather for the Christmas trade thus far. This in a measure has militated somewhat against the Holiday trade. Several inches of snow accompanied by a high wind filled cuts in highways in this part of the state Saturday, and a number of autoists were stalled and had to be pulled out on highways leading to New Ulm. But notwithstanding the snows and cold snaps that have visited this part of the state, Holiday trade has been brisk. With seasonable weather during the balance of the pre-Holiday Joy an extremely heavy selling period.

Brown County Journal,

December 11, 1925

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