
Loop Back: Boxed Chocolates From The Paris Candy Factory
From 1916 to 1936, workers at the massive Paris Factory crafted tasty assortments of chocolate-covered treats at the corner of North 2nd Street and 2nd Avenue North.
It was owned by the National Candy Company of St. Louis, but operated by one of Minneapolis’ first chocolatiers, Alfred Paris.

Photo: MN Historical Society
Back in 1881, Paris had opened his first candy production facility downtown, near 5th and Nicollet. Thirty-five years later, he was able to move his booming business into this 80,000 square foot factory.
A 1916 full page newspaper ad praised the company’s workforce: “In this plant are time-tried men—experts in candy-making—who have grown as this plant has grown; neatly-uniformed women in clean, bright rooms, transforming sugar, fruits, nuts and selected coatings into delicious chocolates, bittersweets and bon bons.”
“The Paris Factory has a personality,” it continued. “While a part of the great National Candy Company (through which it secures its raw materials and enjoys many advantages otherwise impossible) the personnel of this plant is Minneapolitan. This is truly a sunlight factory, with windows on every side.”
Listings in the Minneapolis city directories seemed to indicate that the company was also a wholesale supplier of fireworks and fruits through at least 1926.
Alfred Paris died at the age of 70 in 1922. His sons, Hal and Ben, were already involved in the management of the plant. The candy making operations continued at this intersection until 1936 when the company moved about five blocks to 740 North Washington. Its final listing in Minneapolis city directories was 1940.
One interesting side note: The National Candy Company was formed by a businessman named Vincent Price. His son, Vincent Price, Jr., became a famous actor best-known for playing the villain in horror films.

Vincent Price, Jr.
We have many more pages of neighborhood history in our Historic North Loop section.
By Mike Binkley, North Loop volunteer*
(*not an actual historian; I just pulled together information from newspaper archives, public records, online searches and most helpfully, the digital archives at the Hennepin County Library)

129 North 2nd Street