Heer's pioneers Ozarks retail

He was a man who knew a good opportunity when he saw it.

Heer visited Springfield in 1868 and, less than 24 hours later, he was a Springfield property owner.

The railroad was coming, and “Springfield had a first-class boom,” Heer wrote in a brief autobiography. “The city was full of strangers seeking new homes and making investments. The merchants were crowded with business – money seemed to be plenty. I certainly thought I had struck the Eldorado this time. We arrived by stage about sundown, and by next day at noon, I had bought the southwest corner of Olive and Boonville Street.”

Heer had purchased the property and built a 2,000-square-foot store space purely as an investment, but “I concluded in 1870 to remove to Springfield, Mo., there being a better chance for my children in Springfield than in Waterloo. Southwest Missouri being a new country, my children could grow up with this country and in future could do a larger business than we could ever expect to do in Waterloo, being too close to St. Louis.”

Heer sold his Waterloo interests in spring 1871 and on April 18 arrived in Springfield, where his son, Charles Heer Jr., was already running the store. The railroad, and the rest of Charles Heer’s family, would arrive in 1872. Until that time, stock was purchased twice a year in Rolla and brought overland with teams and wagons.

Charles Heer Jr. headed Heer’s until his retirement in 1886, when his son, Francis Xavier Heer, took over and revolutionized the business.

Heer’s became the first local retailer to employ women salesclerks – Miss Clara Hays was the first – and Heer’s eliminated haggling in favor of a one-price policy. The one-price policy was such a controversial change from barter and trade that three of the store’s clerks quit in protest.

Under Francis X. Heer, the store also went through a series of expanding locations near and on the square until 1915, when the existing building was constructed on the former site of the Greene County Courthouse.

Francis X. Heer decided to retire in 1940, selling controlling interest in the store to Allied Stores Corp. of New York. Allied Stores’ involvement was to spawn another wave of improvements – and opportunities.[[In-content Ad]]