Friday, September 13, 2013

Spang's Glazed Donuts Ad – August 17, 1956

Why do I think of Homer Simpson when I look at this ad?
I've been bringing donuts to my work every Friday since the early 1990s.

Call it job security. There's not going to fire the guy who brings in donuts regularly – right?

For a long time, I picked them up at Bob's Donuts on Broadway (although it required backtracking on my route to work). Later, when I actually tried to get to work on time, I'd stop in Lakewood at one of the last remaining Amy Joy's shops in that chain.

Currently, I get my donuts from the friendly folks at The Doughnut Pantry on Madison. Theirs are terrific (I've mentioned them here on the blog before) and the closest I've ever found to Bob's.

Just like lawn mowing, donuts are always on my mind.

Spang's donuts were featured in the 1953 film
Lorain – An Industrial Empire in Ohio's Vacation Land
Which brings me to today's ad for Spang's Baking Company, which ran in the Lorain Journal on August 17, 1956. Spang's was a family-owned bakery that started in Cleveland in 1887 before expanding into Lorain and a few other cities.

The ad does a good job of getting your attention. A jumbo glazed donut sounds good to me, as good as the jumbo hamburgers featured on this blog yesterday!

Lorain's Spang's Bakery was located at 522 West 22nd Street, which would put it close to the corner of W. 22nd and Oakdale (where the Compassion Baptist Church is today).


A Spang's employee packing glazed donuts in that same 1953 Lorain film
Next: More on Spang's

1 comment:

Mike Kozlowski said...

..Now THIS one I can add some background to.

My mom's family lived on 27th between Oakdale and Lexington (pretty sure it was 412) and we'd spend days on end out there, especially during the summer and the sprinklers would be going at Central Park. While just walking through the neighborhood Mom would point out various things she'd grown up with, and one of them was Spang's Bakery - which apparently burned sometime in the 50s, never did find out exactly when. Most of the building was ruined and seriously overgrown, but for quite some time in the 70s and 80s part of the building was rehabbed and used as a storage facility by the city.