Eureka Grocer Closing

This is another sign of the times. I used to farm the land under this () store until an investor bought it without checking the floodplain, intending to put a subdivision there to supply the need for reasonable housing for the new and incoming workers at the Chrysler Plant in Fenton.

I managed to put the site of Shaw's Garden together, and he purchased that for the development, thus beginning the era of new development in Eureka. So what to do with the corn field at the edge of downtown Eureka became the question. We decided that because he was going to build the sewer treatment facility on the east end of the tract, he would build up an area adjacent to the old town for commercial use.

Suddenly the fill was in place. Bill Sotebier and I were on the local ball team at the time. He was manager of the Eureka IGA, which became the first user of a spot by the building there now. So soon, Eureka had a new grocery store.

Other buildings were added, including the present . The prospect of having a new telephone building was discarded when they ran tests as trains came through, and it was found they caused too much vibrations for the delicate instruments. So I found the location on solid rock on 4th Street—the site of one of the Eureka Schools I attended—a frame building built in the 1800s some time.

We ran a contest to find a name for the new street, and the name Thresher was suggested by the owners of the farm where Elk Trails is located.

We formed a Eureka Development Corporation, which acquired the remaining farm land which had not been filled. To complete the sale of the rest of the farm, I became the owner of the remaining filled land. We had several failed attempts to sell it, when suddenly the Missouri Highway Department put me out of my misery by using it to build the now used, Highway W.  Things did not happen overnight, but did come about in a period of years.

I felt that it might be well to let Patch readers know this backgound of how the Eureka Market store began, as its present history has been referred to now on Patch.

As I go to various stores and see the millions of dollars it takes to stock them, high maintenence cost of buildings and employees, it seems to match out national debt in ability to pay the costs.