From 1916 to 1956, Boulder resident Chester Johnson was more than a familiar face. To adults and children alike, he was “the popcorn man,” selling both popcorn and peanuts from his ornately painted red wagon on the northwest corner of 13th and Pearl streets, across from the Boulder County Courthouse.
Although the wagon was designed to be pulled by a horse, it never left the street corner, and Johnson (and his wagon) became an integral part of downtown Boulder. Peanut and popcorn customers often stood for fifteen or more minutes at a time, just watching the steam engine run.
A Camera reporter called Johnson “a stalwart in a vanishing industry.”
At one side of the wagon was a small low-pressure boiler heated with white gas –– an additive-free gasoline. The boiler fueled a steam engine that stirred the corn in a kettle-type popper.
Butter and salt were mixed with the popcorn and cooked into the popping kernels. Johnson advertised that he used Boulder County corn exclusively.
Steam-power also turned a peanut roaster. In winter, Johnson also directed the steam into a floor vent to keep the wagon heated. He claimed that he only needed a few gallons of white gas per day.
During a Camera interview in 1935, Johnson reflected that his best business had been in the years right after World War I. “A few years ago, a man would buy a sack of corn for himself and each of his three or four children,” he stated. “Now he just buys one for the whole family.”
Still, he had been in the right place at the right time. In Boulder’s pre-shopping center days, the city’s downtown was the only place to do business and shop. Within a two-block radius were J. C. Penny and Company, Montgomery Ward, Safeway, and Walgreen Drugs, as well as banks, restaurants, movie theaters, and other business establishments.
Every day, Johnson rode his bicycle from his home on Pine Street. If he got downtown early, which he often did, he played cards with his friends in the old Elks Lodge, now the Courthouse Annex on the southwest corner of 13th and Spruce streets.
Johnson manned his wagon from 2:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. throughout the week and until 11 p.m. on Saturdays. On holidays and special occasions he was open in the mornings, as well. He always had a book with him to fill his time on slow days. And he took a one-week vacation every September.
In 1956, illness forced Johnson to retire. By then, Boulder had grown and changed, and late historian Forest Crossen described the wagon as “quaint” and “lost in the shuffle of time.” Johnson, however, said that his engine had never failed him, stating, “There’s nothing old-fashioned about the usefulness of steam.”
Johnson then sold his popcorn wagon to a motel owner in Canon City. The wagon had been made by Cretors & Company in Chicago in 1910 and was called “the improved special, model D.” Its original cost, when new, was $1,400, equivalent to more than $45,000 today.
Boulder residents were sorry to see the popcorn wagon go. Johnson, “the popcorn man,” died in 1961 at the age of 79 and is buried in Mountain View Memorial Park, in Boulder.
Silvia Pettem’s In Retrospect column appears once a month. She can be reached at silviapettem@gmail.com.
