Everybody has to eat, so there are few things more universal than shopping for groceries. Our series Market Memories looks at how that experience in the Des Moines metro has changed over the years.
For most residents, it probably seems like Hy-Vee always has been the Des Moines metro’s leading supermarket chain. But there was a time when Hy-Vee had no presence at all in Des Moines and Polk County.
Hy-Vee launched in southern Iowa town
Founded in 1930 in tiny Beaconsfield in southern Iowa, the company that became Hy-Vee by 1938 had 15 stores in rural communities in Iowa and Missouri, with its headquarters in the border town of Lamoni. In 1945, it acquired a grocery wholesale operation in Chariton and moved its headquarters there. Its expansion accelerated in the postwar era, and by 1952, the company had adopted the Hy-Vee brand, shorthand for the names of founders Charles Hyde and Dwight Vredenburg.
Still, its presence in central Iowa was limited. That would change as the decade ended and the 1960s began.
Hy-vee’s first Des Moines metro store opens in Johnston
Stories and ads in the Des Moines Register chart the chain’s move into the Des Moines area. The first mention is in a story about Hy-Vee’s purchase of the former Elwell food store on Merle Hay Road in Johnston in August 1959. At the time, the now-six-county metro consisted only of the city of Des Moines and Polk County.
The story noted that employees at other Hy-Vee stores had been working nightly to help redesign the fixtures and rearrange the stock in the 8,400-square-foot Johnston store ― tiny by comparison to today’s Hy-Vee stores. It also said the apparently dirt or gravel parking lot would be paved.
“We are happy to get into the Des Moines area,” the story quoted Harold Trumbull, vice president in charge of retail operations for Hy-Vee, as saying. “This is but a start. We have expectations in two or three years to have more stores in the area.”
Growth reaches Des Moines. What was the first Hy-Vee in the city?
It didn’t take even that long. A November 1959 story reported that a shopping center was under construction in Altoona and that a Hy-Vee “will be one of the new stores in the project.” In January 1961, a Hy-Vee ad in the Register, headlined “Hy-Vee grows with Iowa,” noted the Altoona store had opened in 1960 ― on June 1 at 629 Eighth St. SE, according to Hy-Vee’s records ― and promised more stores “soon in Des Moines.” The Altoona store relocated in 1980 to the current location at Eight Street SW.
The first store in the city of Des Moines ― designated Des Moines #1 Hy-Vee ― opened in 1961, 65 years ago as of April 26, at what was then called Shopper’s Fair shopping center. It relocated in 1986 to the Harding Hills shopping center, a short walk away on what would become Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway.
Another opened in Urbandale at 6401 W Douglas Ave., heralded by a February 1961 Register story that noted it had a paved parking lot for 115 cars and “a rapidly vibrating door mat that cleans the customers’ shoes as they walk into the store.” A second Urbandale store opened in 1979 at 8601 Douglas Ave. and the first one closed in 1982 as the newer store expanded. It now has more than 90,000 square feet of floorspace and a Hy-Vee Fast & Fresh location.
The same story noting the novel door mat said another store was under construction on Euclid Avenue in Des Moines. Des Moines #2 Hy-Vee opened in December 1961 at 2537 E Euclid. It relocated in 1991 to 2540 E Euclid, just across the street, according to Hy-Vee records.
How Hy-Vee’s empire was born
Today, there are well more than 20 Hy-Vee stores in the metro and six in the city of Des Moines alone, plus a smaller Hy-Vee Drugstore at 4100 University Ave. that has a full line of groceries. There also are several Fast & Fresh locations in the city. Hy-Vee has outlasted competitors like A&P, Hinky Dinky, Dahl’s and Thriftway to dominate the city.
Even more noteworthy, Hy-Vee moved its headquarters to West Des Moines in 1995 and now is the metro’s largest employer, with some 11,000 workers. It’s the nerve center of an operation that has more than 550 locations in nine states, including 305 grocery stores and 189 convenience stores.
Hy-Vee seemed to be contemplating that future when it said in the 1961 ad, “We realize that Iowa’s future is our future and we hope to be around a long time.”
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Hy-Vee wasn’t always a Des Moines metro institution | Market Memories
Reporting by Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
