A Brief Look at the History of Heer’s Department Store
By Matthew Siegmann
Heer's Department Store was founded March 1st, 1871 by Charles H. Heer. During the time Mr. Heer ran the company it would change from a small wholesale dry goods store to a full service retail dry goods store. In 1879 Heer’s became the second retail business in the state of Missouri to become incorporated (Newman's Department Store of Joplin was the first). In the 1896, when Mr. Heer was about 76 years old, he passed on the company to his son Frances X. Heer. Under F. X. Heer’s leadership the store became the first in Springfield to employee women, and to end the barter system. By the time F. X. Heer retired in 1940 Heer's Department Store had grown to be the largest retail business in the Ozarks serving a radius of 100 miles, and had become the store that Springfieldians and Ozarkians of the 20th century would come to know and love.
After the store was sold to Allied Stores Inc. in 1940, store president F. W. McClerkin was to be the continuing forward force in Heer's development. In 1951, the store under went a major expansion of the first two floors to the north all the way to Olive Street. As part of the expansion, Heer's became the first building in Springfield to have escalators. After Mr. McClerkin's retirement in 1973, Robert Stelzer became the new store president and presided over the opening of the Heer's branch store in the Battlefield Mall in 1976.
In 1987 Heer’s was sold to a local group headed by Janet Boswell who became the store's next president. It was under her direction that the business had grown to its largest size after the acquisition of the Newman's Department Store of Joplin in 1988 and changing its name to Heer's. Due to financial difficulties and an FBI investigation Heer's filed for bankruptcy in 1990 and was sold to national retailer Kline Brothers Inc. of Cincinnati, Ohio, a company interested in buying and reviving failing retail chains. Under Kline Bros. Heer's began its recovery. The Joplin store was closed but the Goldie’s store in the Northtown Mall, owned by Kline Bros. as well, was converted into a Heer's.
While Heer’s once again became profitable and did quite well, its look had been well tarnished. By 1994 Kline Bros. decided to sell off their retail stores altogether and put the equity into the rest of their corporation. After extensive advertisement of the sale of Heer’s Department Store, Kline Bros. could not find any takers. In January of 1995 with no buyers wishing to take over the business, Heer's was closing for good. After all merchandise had been sold off the store was closed for a week and then reopened on Monday, January 23rd, 1995 It remained open through that Saturday for people to say their goodbyes and the majority of the fixtures and any removable items left in the store were sold off. On Saturday, January 28th, 1995, after almost 125 years serving the Ozarks, Heer's Department Store closed its doors for the last time and faded into Springfield's history.
"…Old buildings are not ours. They belong, partly to those who built them, and partly to the generations of mankind who are to follow us. The dead still have their right in them: That which they labored for…we have no right to obliterate."
"What we ourselves have built, we are at liberty to throw down. But what other men gave their strength, and wealth, and life to accomplish, their right over it does not pass away with their death…"
by John Ruskin 1849
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