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The Great Bull Market (1933-1962)
Research and Article by Jayme Klein

Oscar Mayer display at The Great Bull Market, Smith Avenue at Grand Street, May 1951.
Photograph by Edward Budney. Friends of Historic Kingston Archives.

This 1951 photo of The Great Bull Market grocery store recently prompted a flurry of online comments and memories: “My parents shopped there in the early 1950s… My mother worked at the dress factory above the store…. My uncle worked there for 30 years… My great uncle worked there as a butcher… I worked there when I was 16. I’m 83 now!”

The Great Bull Market, Smith Avenue at Grand Street, c. 1935.
Modjeska Signs Collection. Friends of Historic Kingston Archives.

The Great Bull Market on Smith Avenue at Grand Street was an all-in-one shopping experience, one of the area’s first true “supermarkets.” At 22,000 square feet, it was the largest retail market in the Hudson Valley between New York City and Albany when the first Kingston location opened in 1933.

Cashiers at The Great Bull Market, Smith Avenue, May 1951.
Photograph by Edward Budney. Friends of Historic Kingston Archives.

Raymond E. Craft (1897-1977) opened The Great Bull Market in the former Shapiro & Rubin clothing factory on April 20, 1933. His father, Eugene S. Craft (1867-1943), was also in the grocery business, operating a store at 330 Wall Street in the early 1920s and helping open Craft Super Market on O’Neil Street in 1937.

Interior of The Great Bull Market, Smith Avenue, April 1947.
Photograph by Edward Budney. Friends of Historic Kingston Archives.

Raymond Craft selected the name to indicate “that good times were on the way again. The bears had been put to flight and there was going to be an upward trend in business: consequently the unusual name for the market” (Kingston Daily Freeman March 17, 1933). The Great Bull Markets later expanded to Poughkeepsie, Newburgh, and a second Kingston location on Washington Avenue.

The Great Bull Market butcher counter, Smith Avenue, April 1947.
Photograph by Edward Budney. Friends of Historic Kingston Archives.

The Smith Avenue store also included other Craft family enterprises, including a wholesale drug business and the Craft Paint Company, which offered Lowe Brothers Paints and Niagara Wall Paper. Other departments were secondary locations for local businesses, per a 1933 Daily Freeman article: Van’s Cut Rate Patent Medicine and Cosmetic Shop, Howard Popcorn and Peanut Store, Ambrose Brothers Luncheonette and Soda Fountain, Ketterer’s Bakery, Arthur Brown Tire and Auto, William P. Lehr Fruits and Vegetables, Harry Short Pet and Flower Shop, Pennington & Johnston Antiques, and Mark Pennington Costume Jewelry. The elder Mr. Craft noted these partner businesses “saw the need and possibilities for a market of this kind in Kingston and appreciated the opportunity to help turn this idle factory building into a hive of industry.”

The Great Bull Markets hand-painted sign, c. 1935. Modjeska Signs Collection. Friends of Historic Kingston Archives.

The Great Bull Market advertisements promised to save the family budget “from 10 percent to 50 percent” and “to buy everything possible locally,” including equipment and stock. Other perks included free public parking and a self-service grocery department. This well-remembered local business is represented in our archive’s Modjeska Signs Collection and in the current Friends of Historic Kingston Gallery exhibit, Edward Budney: Photographer on view May-October 2026.