These stories can also be heard on Sunday mornings around 10 am on WILD 102’s “Look Back in Time” program. Each week’s radio story will be posted here on our website.
Weekly radio stories are researched, compiled, and read by Sheila Winstead, RCHS Board Member.
August 18, 2024
On April 1, 1981, the Roseau Times-Region published an article about the 40 th anniversary of the
Honl’s Bakery in Roseau. I’ll read that article today.
Those tantalizing aromas have been wafting their way from the Honl Bakery for 40 years. Now,
as then, the lights are lit throughout the night as the bread and roll baking takes place and
preparations for the day to come begin.
Arnold Honl laughs as he remembers how he and his wife used to share the load. “She would
work in the front end during the day and I would do the baking at night. I’d meet her on the
bridge coming to work,” he chuckled.
He had purchased the bakery in 1941 from Alfred Olson, not renewing his lease on a bakery in
Wahpeton, to come to Roseau. “I had never been here although I had a brother-in-law at
Wannaska.” He had learned from a salesman that Olson wanted to retire so he came up to see
the place and, on May 15, 1941, bought it.
He saw a lot of wood piles when he drove around town and said to himself, “Oh, oh, everyone
here must have their own cook stove.” But he started baking cookies, rolls, cake doughnuts, etc.,
and started catering to the retail trade as well. “The retail business started well but the war
came along and it was hard to get sugar and shortening,” he remembered. He had to cut back
and make less. He used syrup for sweetener and condensed milk . . . “but we were stuck for
shortening.”
He built the first addition to the building in 1950 when the war was over . . . after having
removed the old coke-burning oven (with two fire boxes) in 1943 in favor of an oil fired oven.
In 1961 he added a new front to the bakery, put in new show cases and continued to add new
equipment throughout the years.
He emphasized how nice it was to have Laura Knochenmus in the front end and Elsie Sando
helping in the back for some 30 years or more.
The Honl boys began to help their dad in the bakery, and in 1972, when he and his wife retired,
they took over. All are graduates of the Dunwoody Baking School. Bob and Pete take care of the
baking on the night shift and work from midnight to about 3:30 a.m. depending on “what is
going on in town,” Charles Honl says. He takes over at 5:00 a.m. or so.
Bob and Pete do the bread and baking and make the rolls and buns and do delivering. Charles
decorates cakes, bakes cookies, etc. and “the things that need to be done during the day.”
There have been a lot of changes in 40 years, Arnold and his sons agree. For one thing they get
many more refrigerated supplies . . . but have fewer salesmen calling. They used to separate the
egg whites by hand – but now get pasteurized egg whites ready to go. Whereas yeast was a
problem to get quickly and keep in earlier years (it used to come by truck, parcel post and
express) it now comes vacuum packed from France and is hard as a brick. When the package is
punctured, the yeast is soft and fresh.
Arnold recalls using a half a carload of flour a month in years past. Now flour comes from supply
houses and they use “a couple of tons a week, depending on what is going on in town.”
Suppliers don’t like to come this far North, Charles says. The closest bakery to Roseau is Grafton,
North Dakota. “Grafton has only one bakery and supermarket bakeries,” he noted.
People’s tastes do change, Charles affirms. In the 50s the trend was to soft breads which
required preservatives. “Now,” Charles said, “they want products without preservatives . . .
more or less like home made.”
The public still likes cakes and cookies and other pastries . . . they still have a sweet tooth, he
agrees. “We are always trying to change our varieties, like bars, etc.” Charles indicated. They are
able to discern changes in taste quite quickly.
He noted that some things, like peanut butter, are hard to get and are high priced . . . “but other
than that, they are sort of stable right now.”
The bakery now provides breads and rolls for most commercial establishments in the area
including hospitals and the rest homes.
The boys put in a new oven two years ago, one which uses gas heat and is ready to go in 15
minutes. “The old one took 1-1/2 hours to heat up so there is quite a difference.” Arnold said.
The bakery is inspected four times a year. “They even send supervisors to check on the
inspectors . . . there are state and federal inspectors, both” Charles said.
Arnold reports he has enjoyed the years in the bakery and still drops in “every day for a cup of
coffee.” He says firmly he’d do it all again.
The boys enjoy their work, keep their regular shifts (the bookkeeping is an ever-increasing job,
however) and keep those aromatic smells coming to tantalize customers.
Now the third generation of Honls are beginning to help in the bakery. There seems little doubt
that we’ll be eating well for years to come.
Thank you to 
for letting us share our county’s history with your listeners by donating air time, studio time, and production staff every week.