In 1907 Walter Cannon Quinn returned to his home in Henderson, Kentucky after seven years residence in California.
He and his brother Arthur Joseph (a lineman for the Bell Telephone Company in Henderson bought from John Smith and Charles Unverzagt the small meat market located midway of the south side of the two hundred block on Green Street. The original owners stayed on with the Quinn brothers as meat cutters. The Quinns expanded the market into a full line of groceries and fresh produce, known as Quinn’s Quality Market on Clay Street and brought their brother George, a Corydon merchant, to Henderson as a third partner. Later they sold the Clay Street market and added a line of delicatessen items to the downtown store, including their famed Quinn’s Kentucky Burgoo, which brought customers from the entire Tri-state area. In the 1920’s George was lured to Florida by the “land boom” where he remained until his death.
Walter and Arthur operated the market until the beginning of the World War Il days when they closed it and Walter went to Republic Aviation in Evansville as a supervisor building the widely acclaimed Thunderbird planes of World War II. Arthur was appointed a toll-collector on the Henderson-Evansville bridge until it became toll free.
Quinn Brothers “Sanitary Market,” a butcher shop and grocery at 220 Second St., in about 1913. The Quinns, who opened the shop in 1907, slaughtered their own meat, rendered their lard, made their own sausages and cured their hams and bacon. They also sold country produce, wild game in season and light groceries. A sign on the counter stresses that the store was not open on Sunday. From left: Walter C. Quinn, meat-cutter Charles Unverzagt, George Quinn, bookkeeper Ollie Gilligan and A. J. “Roundy” Quinn.
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