Setting the Hy-Vee trivia record straight

I rewrote a footnote to Lucas County history the other day while discussing Hy-Vee related trivia (thanks to all who pointed this out and set me back on the straight and narrow). While I've corrected the misinformation in that post, it's probably a good idea to do it here, too.

The Hy-Vee store in question was this one, located on the southeast corner of the Chariton square. I suggested in the earlier post that both this store and a second Hy-Vee location on the west side of the square closed when the new Hy-Vee Supermarket opened during July of 1955 at the intersection of North Main Street and Auburn Avenue.

In fact, this store continued to operate (as Hy-Vee No. 2) for 10 more years --- until late December, 1966, when a major fire resulted in its closure a couple of months before it was scheduled to close anyway upon completion of a major expansion project at the North Main Street location.

This photo, which dates from somewhere in the neighborhood of 1960, came to the Lucas County Historical Society from Thomas McCann. It appears to be a photograph of a halftone engraving proof, which is why the scan of it I've used here didn't turn out especially well. But you can see that, among other things, Chariton had stoplights at the time.

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I call this old building the Dewey Block because it was built in 1890 by Victoria J. Dewey on property that had been owned by her parents, John Branner and then after his death, Jane Cowan Branner, since 1854. Wood frame buildings had been located here previously.

Hy-Vee entered the picture as Hyde & Vredenburg during 1936 when the Lamoni-based partnership bought Max Gendler's grocery store, then occupying the east half of the building, and rebranded it the Chariton Supply Store. Hyde & Vredenburg also bought the building, but sold it almost immediately to Edward G. Danner, an optometrist, and Leo Hoegh, an attorney who went on to serve as Iowa's governor.

Hoegh still owned the building in early 1966, but sold it later in the year to Jack Young after Hy-Vee announced that it planned to close this store upon completion of the North Main expansion project. Jack then begin making plans to relocate his furniture store here.

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The fire that altered the course of history a little broke out on the second floor of the building overnight on Dec. 17-18, 1966. The second floor was gutted --- destroying the law offices of Richard Morr, then county attorney, beauty shops operated by Charles Percifield, Mrs. Lavern Gardner and Cora Andrews, the offices of a shopper called The Advertiser and the apartment of Mrs. John McGinnis.

Although firefighters confined the blaze to the second floor and roof, there was catastrophic damage, too, to the grocery store below and it closed immediately.

After the ashes had settled, the building proved to be structurally sound so Jack put on a new roof, completed the gutting of the second floor begun by the fire, added a new facade and opened his multi-level furniture store here during July of 1967. The building still looks much as Jack left it.

Hy-Vee's expansion project, which doubled floor space in the 1955 building and added a second parking lot, had been completed during February.