When driving through Stevens Point and Plover today it is easy to miss the history of smaller businesses that were bought up by bigger and bigger corporations. Gas stations separated from their car repair shops, and the family-run history of the shop disappeared and became the sparkling countertops of a fresh Kwik Trip. A local bank sold to a larger corporation, and in the renovations that followed the iconic architecture was lost. Smaller general stores were bought up or pushed out by conglomerates like Walmart, and Hardware Hank couldn’t survive when Menards and Fleet Farm moved in. Even businesses from the last 40 years weren’t immune to the constant merging; drive through any large city and see if you can spot the faded outline of a Blockbuster sign, or the tented roof of a Pizza Hut building that has been abandoned. When these businesses change hands the building itself reminds us of the past.
Portage County is unique. Many family businesses resisted the allure of selling to bigger companies and city councils helped keep big businesses out for decades by keeping the zoning regulations strict. We held onto smaller businesses long after other counties began to lose their iconic names and architecture. Even today, Stevens Point boasts almost double the amount of individual businesses in town compared to local statistics from 75 years ago. Over the last century Plover lost farmland and agricultural processing locations as the amount of local farmers dwindled and the land was turned into monoculture farms. Only in the last four decades did we see large businesses entering the Plover market and smaller family businesses finally closing shop. For many residents this has been a bittersweet change. While lowered prices and a wider variety of merchandise is always appreciated, the loss of local familiarity can be tough to stomach. It’s not just the business we mourn but the personal connections that those families made, day in and day out, while they served their community.
One shop that is still missed by locals is Pierce’s Grocery Store. Originally known as Pierce’s Meat Market, this shop opened in 1870 and got a new building in 1874, on the corner of Post Road and Green Avenue. James Pierce, the founder of this family business, picked the right place and the right time. The 1870s were a hallmark of population growth for Portage County and new roads were being built to connect Plover and Stevens Point. Two railroads began to service the area and a railway depot was built nearby in 1876. James Pierce picked a location that got regular traffic from the road, railway, and the Greyhound bus stop that would later be added. This prime spot allowed his business to last for almost 100 years, and was passed down to 3 subsequent generations before it closed in 1967. Across the road was one of Pierce’s competitors; a general store owned by the Lila family.
James Pierce had two sons by the time he opened his meat market. Freshly returned from the Civil War, he had previously worked as a mason and a lumberman. Early in his grocery career he understood the power of the press and was careful to supply local newspaper writers with fresh, choice cuts for their family tables. This ensured that he had plenty of mentions in the local newspaper without paying for specific advertisements. While expanding his meat market into a full-blown grocery store he enlisted his oldest son (Marcus) to join the business and changed the name to “James Pierce & Son” to reflect this. James Pierce’s second son, James Jr, would also be involved in the family business, particularly with sign making and window advertisements. Both James Jr. and Marcus would expand their families as the business grew, and those new generations would also find work as clerks and helping hands in the family store. Pierce’s store continued to operate after fires, floods, and 3 separate burglary incidents. Who knows, perhaps the fact that a local newspaper casually commented in 1917 that “the safe is always left unlocked” didn’t help to deter future burglars. The store constantly expanded what they offered to customers, eventually holding a fresh meat market, pharmaceuticals, dry goods, and fresh groceries.
Pierce’s Grocery was involved in one notable crime investigation in Portage County. In 1903 a local woman, Katherine Harroun, purchased 25 grains of strychnine from Wilmot Pierce (son of Marcus, grandson of James) at Pierce’s General Store, telling Wilmot that she needed to poison some dogs that were killing the family’s sheep. According to Katherine, her husband had requested she make the purchase and she had watched him sprinkle the grains over a recently deceased sheep and put the empty vial in his pocket to bury away from the house. Katherine reported that she gave her husband some milk of magnesia and a shot of sugared whiskey when he was complaining of an upset stomach before dinner that night, but that she had attributed his illness to a recent bout of typhoid fever. She argued that she had no way to know he had taken strychnine to commit suicide. However, a teenager who was working for the family reported that it was after Walter Harroun drank his “cup with medicine” that he began to shiver and complain of feeling very bad. To the townsfolk, it sounded less like suicide and more like homicide, and the longest investigation and trial in Portage County history, at that time, kicked off. The wide availability of poisons, tranquilizers, and painkillers in the early 1900s led to investigations across the country and eventually helped push for stronger control over dangerous substances. For the full story of the Harroun trial, I recommend “The Harroun Murder Trial”, a book published by PCHS.
Back at Pierce’s General Store the daily work continued. Family members purchased produce and meat from local farms and the butcher block was always busy. Regular mentions in the local papers reminded potential patrons that Pierce’s always has fresh groceries and even fresher meat for sale. This dedication to fresh food continued through all generations of store ownership, with the final generation of store-involved Pierce descendents reporting that they were still sourcing produce and meat from nearby farms. Today our agriculture couldn’t support these small general stores, and the farmer’s market has replaced the local produce bins. In his essay “Remembering Pierce’s IGA”, Justin Isherwood mentions that his family farm was able to supply Pierce’s with fresh produce, and that he loved visiting the store and roaming the aisles while pushing one of the four available shopping carts. Pierce’s store was long, with two main aisles that were stacked up towards the second story. Regular additions of new merchandise made it feel glamorous. Shopping was less about getting “in and out” and more about seeing the newly available products and watching the butchers expertly handle the chickens, half hogs, and quarters of beef. For families without freezer space, Pierce’s offered rentable frozen food lockers. Prohibition was no problem for Pierce’s General Store because liquor hadn’t been sold there in the first place. It was the Great Depression that took a toll on the business.
Leo Pierce was not the kind of person who would let the guy sitting next to him in church starve. Leo, son of James Pierce Jr, was the third generation to operate this store and he wasn’t about to watch his neighbors go without while fresh food molded on the shelves and in the cooler. Leo, like many upstanding business owners in the area, quietly allowed store credit to go up and for some accounts to go unpaid. After all, allowing a family to put canned goods and milk on credit ensured that those children grew up healthy, and that those families were that much more likely to continue visiting Pierce’s. After the depression ended, many families were able to pay towards the credit they had built at Pierce’s Grocery. Through the Depression and into the 1950s, competition in Plover was growing.
Stevens Point and Plover had many grocery businesses and specialty food stores. Before larger conglomerate stores opened up, it was reasonable to find one store for fresh fruit and vegetables, another for dry groceries like flour and sugar, a meat market and a dairy, all separated from one another. In Plover, Pierce’s Grocery competed against Lila’s Grocery. Both stores received fresh groceries from local farmers, although the Lila family also had their own farm which did most of their supplying. Both stores joined the Copps distribution network. The Copps Corporation was founded in 1892 and operated as a wholesaler for basic supplies. E.M. Copps and his sons were able to purchase railcars of product, store them in their local warehouses, and sell them to the various stores around Portage County. The Copps Corporation would eventually come out with the “Deerwood” label for dry goods like coffee and rolled oats, and helped local businesses tailor their store designs to increase sales. Stores that wanted to be part of their distribution network needed to order at least $275 worth of product a week in the 1940s after Copps became affiliated with IGA; the Independent Grocers Association. That both main stores in Plover, Pierce’s and Lila’s, were able to maintain this level of ordering shows how large the demand was for their products. While Pierce’s Grocery was able to offer a fantastically fresh meat market, Lila’s Grocery offered home furnishings, cigars, ice cream, and billiards. The two stores may have overlapped, but their main product lines and the way they sold themselves to customers were very different. That is what allowed both to succeed so long while being close to each other.
Another way that Pierce’s Grocery succeeded was the business’ local involvement and regular building improvements. Pierce’s sponsored a bowling team, held bake sales and candy sales for local schools, and donated towards community events. As the local population grew, so did the store. In 1870 the original store was only a meat market and was too small to handle the expanding business. James Pierce constructed the next building in 1874. This building was a story and a half tall that, from the front, seemed to be two stories tall. In 1876 James expanded the store to add an addition in the back. Three years later, in 1879, James dug out a cellar. When the building is viewed from the side you realize that the second floor is really a shortened attic, making it cramped and not suitable for food storage or office use. This attic would be used to store business records and for paper storage. The front of the store had large window displays and two doors that opened into the aisles. There was a butcher counter in the back of the store and ice or smoking would be used to preserve the meat that wasn’t immediately sold. In 1897 after a flood damaged the store floor and lower walls, James Jr had to repair and rebuild portions of the building, but he continued on.
Between 1900 and 1930 refrigeration and freezer units became available and James Jr built a back addition to the grocery store. This building expansion held rentable frozen food lockers and refrigerated meat storage for the store. The doors to these spaces were behind the meat counter. During the same time a small office was built on the right side of the building and the stairs were rerouted to go above this office instead of cutting off valuable wall and ceiling clearance inside the store. The office would be used by store workers, town and county treasurers, and house the Greyhound agent desk once the bus station opened. As the building expanded the aisles widened and some shelves were built up, requiring hooks or grabber tools to retrieve the boxes of cereal and tubs of oatmeal. This made room for the grocery carts that were added and made the store feel more full. The expansions to the store allowed James Pierce and his family to stay relevant to the needs of their customers, but larger grocery conglomerates were moving into the area and the Copps family began to open their “foodliners”, a grocery store that combined other businesses inside to create a one-stop shopping experience, in the 1960s.
Pierce’s Grocery Store closed in October 1967. Discussions had begun to update and expand the store but when the contractor died unexpectedly those plans were reconsidered. Limited space for expansion in the current location, combined with increasing competition from area foodliners resulted in the decision to close. It took three auctions to empty the old building, and even so there was months of work for the 4th generation of the Pierce family as they sorted through old business receipts and decided who would take home the mementos. The building was sold after a few years of disuse and became a new business in 1975; The Discounter. The Discounter offered wholesale food and home items for less, which was the original Copps & Company business model. By 1990 The Discounter was ready to leave the building.
In 1989 the Portage County Historical Society made plans to move the Pierce’s Grocery building to Heritage Park in Plover, and officially finished the move in 1991. It was moved to the eastern side of the block on Washington Avenue and was affectionately nicknamed the Pierce building. Original plans for the building were to display the collection of printing machines that were donated by many individuals and the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point, and to showcase some horse-drawn equipment used in firefighting and other equipment used for agriculture. At this time in Society history the Firehouse on Strongs Avenue had not yet been acquired, which is where this firefighting equipment is now displayed. The Pierce building was moved successfully and maintenance and updates began, only to be met with disaster. In 1994 three local children snuck into the building and set a fire which consumed the majority of the structure. The back half of the building was entirely lost and the front half suffered significant structural damage. Thankfully the items for display were either stored in other locations at the time or were able to be saved by the firefighters who were at the scene. PCHS was in a tough spot to decide what to do with the Pierce building after the fire; 11 structures at Heritage Park were acquired between 1983 and 2000.
With multiple restoration and acquisition projects going at once, the Society searched for a local barn that would fit the footprint of the existing foundation of the Pierce building, but eventually settled on erecting a historic barn from scratch. This barn addition was completed in 2016 and used both new lumber and salvaged lumber from the Engford family’s barn. The renovations and displays inside the barn and the Pierce building were completed in 2020. Today visitors at Heritage Park can see the Pierce building and the display of historic printing equipment and typewriters inside, including the oldest printing press in the state of Wisconsin. By continuing through the building into the barn addition, visitors can also explore the history of agriculture and farming practices; they can see the very tools that grew crops and raised animals that were eventually up for sale in Pierce’s so long ago. Despite the moving, the fire, the restoration, and the barn addition, the original portion of this building has not lost the feeling of a general store. I invite you to take some time at Heritage Park and visit this structure. It is a physical display of how buildings change purpose and ownership over time, but never lose their original charm.
This blog has been sponsored by: MK Real Estate Team at Re/Max Excel