17.05.12
Andy maker Ben Grambsch died of a heart attack while he was delivering candy canes during the Christmas season in 1966.
The candy store and factory that the Grambsch family had run in Loyal, Wis., since 1924 quickly closed, and the Grambsches’ old-fashioned hard candies have disappeared.
Except on one day of the year.
On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, the Grambsch Candy Kitchen in “Depot Square” of Duluth’s Lake Superior Railroad Museum springs to life as Grambsch’s descendants make batches of candy canes, ribbons and buttercups in five flavors.
How did a candy shop from central Wisconsin become reincarnated in Duluth?
It started in the mid-1970s, said Ben’s grandson, Bob Grambsch, when people from the railroad museum were looking to fill storefronts in its mock village on the ground floor of the Depot. Clyde Grambsch, Ben’s son, heard about it and suggested the idled candy equipment would be ideal.
“When he found out exactly what it was going to be used for, he said, ‘Will you put my dad’s name on it?’ They said, ‘Sure, we’ll put your dad’s name on it’,” Bob Grambsch related. “Well, then he kept the price down to almost a donation.
Source: Duluth News Tribune