Wagon pops with New Ulm history

By Dan Linehan
The Free Press

NEW ULM May 12, 2008 01:17 am

— The only boss, Sylvia Hopkins used to say, is the kettle.
For 30 years, she was behind the counter of the popcorn wagon at the corner of Center and Minnesota streets in downtown New Ulm.
And while it’s the historic wagon — bought for $1,200 in 1914 — that will be the draw Thursday during its dedication ceremony, for Barb Marti it will be about her late mother, Sylvia.
Marti and her sister, Marcia, reluctantly sold the wagon to the Brown County Historical Society in 2002.
After that, Barb would cry as she drove past the society’s annex, where the wagon is kept.
“It was so much a part of my mother,” she said. “She was the popcorn lady those 30 years.”
As the popcorn lady, good care of the kettle was axiomatic to Sylvia Hopkins, her daughter said.
The kettle is where the corn kernels are popped, eventually pushing up a hinge and flowing into a heated base unit. The unpopped kernels, called “old maids,” fall through small holes into another compartment.
Every time Sylvia used the kettle, she’d clean it thoroughly. Remnants of the fried grease were nowhere to be found.
Eventually, though, the woman known around town as the Popcorn Lady had to retire. Business had slowed in the past two decades, after the outdoor theater closed, businesses began offering free popcorn and people popped their own corn at home.
The historical society had its eye on the piece of Americana for quite some time, though the sale didn’t come easily.

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