"A Look Back"

The Stories presented here are about people and events during the early days when this corner of Colorado was first settled.

The Fuss family – Bringing the staff of life to Craig
By Shannan Koucherik for the Museum of NW Colo

As Craig continued to grow through the 20th century, more and more of her residents changed from rural to town lifestyles. While homestead families usually depended on bread kneaded and baked at home – frequently made from grain grown and ground by their own hands – town families needed a steady supply of baked goods.

Bakeries of different sizes and quality began early in the town’s history, sometimes only providing a few loaves of bread a week for travelers and trades people.

In 1921, the Craig Bakery advertised; “We use Craig Flour. The excellent flavor of ‘Honey’ bread and Craig Bakery cakes and pastries is partially due to the exclusive use of Craig flour, coupled with many years of ‘know how’. A real ‘home industry’ using local product the Craig Bakery is supplying much of Northwestern Colorado with its high grade products.” (Craig Empire Courier March 2, 1921)

The Craig Bakery went through several owners and bakers, one of whom would strike out on his own into a business that provided quality baked goods for the residents of Craig for many decades.

Conrad Fuss was born in Grand Island, Neb, one of seven children of Conrad Fuss, Sr. and his wife Anna. Conrad Jr. left school by age 15 and went to work for German immigrant baker John Degen. Fuss’ apprenticeship lasted three years and he then moved on to Denver where he went to work for Arthur Weiss, who would become his lifelong mentor in the bakery trade.

He met the love of his life, Edith while working in Denver. She had been married before and had a young son, Robert. Conrad Fuss took the boy as his own and the little family began moving around Wyoming and Nebraska as “Connie” worked at bakeries. They eventually moved to Craig and found the stability they had been looking for.

Conrad took a job at the Craig Bakery and worked there for several years until it went bankrupt during the depression in 1932. At that time, he and Edith decided “that they might as well be working for themselves without pay.” (Empire-Courier May 6, 1953)

They began with a modest shop in a leased building. About the time that they began their Ideal Bakery, their son Richard was born. He spent many of his earliest days in a pasteboard box while his mother worked at learning the bakery business with her husband.

In 1932, they saw an investor come in to open a competing bakery and they felt that they couldn’t compete with his modern equipment so Connie closed his shop and went to work for the new company. Before they closed, they had a contract to supply 160 lbs. of sliced bread daily, but their only equipment was a bread knife, which made fulfilling their contract a daunting task.

Fuss didn’t work long for the new bakery and returned to their farm to try making it as a homesteader. The bakery soon went bankrupt and a delegation of Lions Club members asked Connie if he would run the shop until it could be sold. The Fusses packed up again and moved back into town.

This time town would stick.

When the bankrupt bakery came up for sale the couple managed to buy the equipment and lease a building from Mrs. McKinney. They tried to supplement their income by running a boarding house, but Edith soon found that that “was not a job for a panty waist, especially this one…I put my foot down and was the meansest old meany you ever heard of…I had no time to waste on deadbeats and drunks.” (ibid)

Edith found that she had talent as a cake decorator and focused her efforts on that part of the business. The family continued to work together through the years. They kept upgrading equipment and by the 1950s were considered one of the most modern bakeries in Colorado, turning out 400 loaves of bread of different types daily as well as 300 dozen doughnuts and rolls, 50 cakes, dozens of pies and approximately 3,500 cookies a week. They were using 2 ½ tons of flour a week as well as the other fresh ingredients needed to make their products top drawer.

In 1956, son Bob Fuss bought the bakery from his parents and he and his wife continued the family tradition of excellence. They expanded their business by putting their products into Craig grocery stores.

Conrad and Edith Fuss lived into the 1980s, retired in Glendale, Ariz. They lived long enough to see their dream come true thanks to hard work and attention to detail. When the last loaf of bread came out of the oven in the Ideal Bakery in 1965, Craig lost a treasure and a source of wealth for the community.