73 Years Ago
In February of 1953, Golden was all a-twitter because Aunt Jemima would be coming to town on March 7th. The first announcement appeared in the February 19, 1953 Colorado Transcript. It said “she will be welcomed by Mayor Everett Barnhardt and representatives from Golden civic clubs in an official ‘Key to the City’ presentation early Saturday morning at City Hall.
It’s not entirely clear that they knew she was a fictional character. The article goes on to describe her as “a leading culinary expert for more than half a century.”
The excitement continued in the February 26th edition, which reported that a reception committee would meet her at 16th and Washington. A parade, including the Colorado School of Mines band, would escort her down Washington Avenue to City Hall. There, she would receive the key to the city and a bouquet of flowers. After that, she would be driven to Safeway, where she would distribute free pancakes.
The March 5th issue provided the final details regarding the parade. A local woman, who had won a race sponsored by Quaker Oats, would be riding with Aunt Jemima in the car, and clowns would accompany the parade and scatter free Quaker Oats products to the crowd. In addition to the free pancakes at Safeway, 400 children would receive free comic books and adults would be given free recipe books.
The School of Mines got in on the excitement, recruiting Aunt Jemina to be the celebrity chef at a fund-raising pancake support benefitting an injured student. "The supper is being furnished by Aunt Jemima, The Quaker Oats Co, Cudahy Packing Co., Snow Crop frozen food, The Dwight Edwards Coffee Col, The Wesson Oil Co., and Safeway Store, Inc."
Both parties were successful. The March 12th Transcript reported that the pancake supper raised $310. “A few hundred people” were downtown for the 8AM parade and “approximately 1500” people went to Safeway for the pancake shindig.
Golden certainly knows how to show a fictional character a good time.
In 2020, PepsiCo/Quaker Oats concluded that Aunt Jemima was a racist stereotype and the pancakes, waffles, and syrup were rebranded as "Pearl Milling Company."
