His Heer's & Ours

For generations of Springfieldians, Heer’s was a symbol of downtown vitality and business success.

It was also a springboard to opportunity.

For young World War II veteran Arthur B. “Bent” Agee, like millions of American servicemen, the postwar period was the beginning of a golden age.

The economy was booming. The population was booming. And Heer’s and downtown Springfield were riding the wave.

Home from the war

When Agee returned to Springfield to start his career in 1945 – a 24-year-old veteran with two invasions under his belt – Heer’s was the center of commerce and social life in a bustling central business district.

It was the foundation upon which Agee would build a 59-year career in retail trade and downtown real estate.

In a way, Agee married into the retail business.

“I had just come out of the U.S. Coast Guard. My wife (Virginia Nordyke) was the executive secretary to Mr. Bill McClerkin, who was the president of the store, and it was through her that I began working at Heer’s,” he said.

Agee’s first job was selling men’s clothing on a 5 percent commission, earning about $75 a week. He then enrolled at Draughon’s Business College, but McClerkin kept urging him to return to Heer’s on the GI Bill.

“He said on-the-job training would be much better than just going to the business college. So, I accepted,” Agee said.

Starting in the receiving room matching invoices and orders, Agee would end his retail career in 1986 as the store’s senior vice president and controller of operations. “All because I started out as a trainee in Heer’s,” he said.

A wave of change

Named store operations manager in 1948, a year later Agee was named the liaison between the New York office, the architect and the contractor on Heer’s $1 million-plus remodeling project, the first remodeling since the building’s construction in 1914.

It was a period of major changes downtown, many of them driven by Heer’s.

In 1948 and 1949, Heer’s began a campaign of property acquisition for room to grow and to create parking – as necessary a commodity then as it is now.

“We started all the parking downtown,” Agee said. “There was no public parking.”

Two old mule barns, remnants of the days when goods were transported by wagon, were torn down on the northeast and northwest corners of Olive and Campbell to make parking lots. The lot at the southwest corner of Olive and Campbell – the future site of College Station – also was acquired for parking, along with several buildings on the south side of Olive.

“In 1949, we also bought the Baker Building, which was a big office building to the North of Heer’s,” Agee said. The building was razed, and Heer’s two-story extension built in its place.

Besides the extension, Heer’s also added The Gravel Bar restaurant on the mezzanine. It was themed after a favorite fishing spot on the White River for Heer’s and Allied Stores executives. Allied Stores Corp. purchased controlling interest in1940.

Heer’s also added the Mark Twain Room, a favorite gathering place for Central High School students. “They’d cruise over and have their afternoon get-together on the mezzanine,” Agee said.

The changes were introduced with a grand opening celebration in 1951, and shoppers met the changes with open arms.

Returning veterans were fueling a consumer economy of unprecedented proportions. Wages were higher than ever before. The greatest generation hung up their military uniforms, donned suits and went to work, buying homes, starting families and rearing the baby boom generation.

Downtown vitality

From the mid-1940s to the 1960s, Heer’s and downtown were humming.

“At Heer’s we had fashion shows. We had the tea room, where lots of civic groups would meet. And ladies would come out for bridge,” Agee said.

Businesses were thriving downtown. In the mid- to late 1950s, the area immediately around the square boasted four shoe stores, four 5&10s, six dress shops, three men’s clothing stores, a drugstore, a bank, two jewelers, two department stores, a theater, a cigar store and two restaurants.

“We had good competition downtown,” Agee said.

Heer’s catered to its customers with services – from alterations to shoe repair to gift-wrapping. And Heer’s 16 picture windows were the showcase of the growing consumer culture.

“For several years, downtown had Springfield on Display, and we would have live models in the windows,” Agee said. “We had one window that got a lot of attention. It had a black curtain, and … girls sitting with their legs through the curtain advertising hosiery. I think that was about the time pantyhose came into being, and that window got more attention than any window downtown. And it wasn’t gaudy. It was good, clean fun.”

The Heer’s culture

Heer’s was customer- and community-oriented, an approach that was exemplified from the top down by F.W. McClerkin. Service was the watchword.

“Mr. McClerkin was really a gentleman,” Agee said. “He’d stand on the first floor and greet customers as they would come in the front door.”

Making the customer happy was the No. 1 concern, and Heer’s employee handbook advised “You do not have the authority to say ‘No’ to a customer.”

That policy extended to returns.

“We had a return policy that it didn’t matter, we took it back,” Agee said. “If it ever got up to our office, we took care of it, regardless of cost.”

Heer’s stood up in favor of desegregation in 1960, and Agee took an active role in a 1968 initiative by Mayor Carl Stillwell to encourage businesses to hire blacks.

McClerkin also set the tone in civic affairs by being involved with organizations such as the chamber of commerce and downtown association, “and as a result, all the executives were, too,” Agee said.

Agee was involved in the chamber, the United Fund and the Metro Club.

“In 1954, I was president of the Metro Club and we bought the elephant for the zoo. We bought Ol’ CC,” Agee said.

Ol’ CC was named for Ozarks weatherman C.C. Williford, who formally adopted the baby elephant as his “child” during dedication ceremonies at the zoo in 1954.

Funds to purchase the four-year-old elephant were raised by selling peanuts. And of course, Ol’ CC eventually made a personal appearance on the main floor at Heer’s.

The end of an age

Then, the times changed. So did downtown.

“I think that change started coming along in the late ‘60s, and downtown tried to fight it – and made a lot of mistakes,” Agee said.

The postwar boom that had driven and funded the consumerism of the last two decades had also driven the rise of the suburbs, and the decline of downtown as the community center.

Commercial development followed on the heels of suburban growth, and the convenience of nearby retail and services sapped downtown’s customer base.

Another factor was urban renewal in center city, which Agee recalls beginning in the late 1960s.

“They tore the buildings down and moved the businesses out, so it was really urban destruction,” Agee said. “And that hurt downtown. We had a lot of good businesses downtown … and they all had to leave.”

How center city faced competition from malls and strip centers was another issue.

In response to the development of Battlefield Mall in the early 1970s, Springfield took the same route as many other cities: It closed the square and tried to turn the central business district into a kind of outdoor mall.

The results, here and elsewhere, were disastrous.

Finally, Heer’s itself had changed.

By the time Agee retired in 1986, he said, “The quality of merchandise had gone down. They were carrying too much import and it wasn’t the fine store that it was. And it had been going down for about 10 years,” Agee said.

“Profits had gone down. I remember Allied telling us that they could just get rid of us and make more money on CDs than they could on the store.”

A local ownership group purchased the store in 1987, but Agee wasn’t interested. He knew the time had passed.

“One person, a friend of mine that I went to school with, came to me and asked my opinion about being one of those partners, and I told him (to) leave it alone. I knew the books and I knew what the profit potential was, and I said that you’ll just lose your money if you invest it. He didn’t. And he thanked me,” Agee said.

Heer’s declared bankruptcy in 1990, and when malfeasance by executive Janet Boswell dominated the headlines, it was the beginning of the end. Heer’s closed for good in 1995.

“It was sad,” Agee said. “But the way it had gone, I knew it had to be.”

Downtown savvy

When business began to decline in the 1970s, Bent Agee heard opportunity knock.

“In 1974, we no longer needed all the parking we had, and the bus station at Olive and Patton went up for sale … and I bought it,” Agee said. “I lost money until 1980, and then the state office came downtown.”

Knowing the value of downtown parking, Agee would acquire lots as they came up for sale over the years, as well as several buildings on Water Street between Boonville and Campbell, and the Book Rack building on Olive – formerly a hotel – which he turned into loft apartments.

“Through those years, as the state needed new parking, I bought new parking,” Agee said. “After a time, I had 17 contracts with the state.”

Agee remained active in downtown real estate until 2004. “In June of 2004, the city bought everything I had. So I’ve been unemployed for over a year, and I was downtown a total of 59 years between Heer’s and my own business,” he said.

Of the changes that are going on downtown now, Agee said, “I think it’s great. I hate not being a further part of it.

“I love downtown.”

Click here to read about how Heer’s pioneered the retail business in southwest Missouri.

Click here to read the memories of those who frequented Heer’s.

Click here to read about Springfield’s skyward evolution.

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