As a child I have memories of running around the warehouse and my dad letting me pick out a candy bar from the huge boxes or candy stacked up. It was so exciting! I also remember visiting, I believe it was the Delavan store. Memories of little dime store toys and rows of that old fashioned candy, oh and parrot perched atop of the counter where you checked out, come to mind.
When I was little I remember living for awhile in Delavan, Wi. Also for a while in Iowa and eventually most of my life my dad worked at the Lake Zurich, Il warehouse for Schultz Bros. If anyone has any pictures or info, please send it to me here. You can post it in the comments section.
When I moved to back to Delavan many years later as an adult, I was driving down the street and new store owners were taking down the old "Schultz Bros" sign from the storefront. I wish I wasn't shy. I would of pulled over and asked if I could have it. But I didn't and I often wondered what happened to that sign, Is it in storage? Thrown away?
Facts I do know about Schultz Bros.
* Schultz Bros was considered a 5 and 10 store.
* Robert Schultz opened the first little store in 1902 in Appleton, Wi.
* The brother of Robert, Louis Schultz, opened a second store in Green Bay in 1903, and a third one in 1904.
* Two other brothers, Charles and Gustave, eventually joined in the family business.
* Schultz Bros became a chain of 76 variety stores located in Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
The 1980's saw the end of this chain when Schultz filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1988.
Here are some pictures I found online of Schultz Bros.
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| Photo Credit: Mainstreet Marketplace |
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| Photo Credit: Menasha |
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| Photo Credit: Menasha |
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| Photo Credit: Menasha |
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| Photo Credit: Mainstreet Marketplace |
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| Photo Credit: Mainstreet Marketplace |
I found this following article online and am trying to figure out if Piggly Wiggly was originally Schultz Bros. It appears to be but the dates don't match up. If you have any details on this please let me know.
Eventually Schultz Bros turned into ...
The Company grew from its modest beginnings as “The Schultz Brothers Company” in 1911 throughout that decade and by 1920, the name was changed to “Schultz Brothers Company Wholesale Grocers.”
The Company’s growth continued so that in 1946 the Company broadened its grocery distribution services to include fresh produce and frozen foods. With a new facility, along with new produce and frozen food departments, the Company was able to offer “Buy Low,” the voluntary retail group it was servicing, a greater selection of food products... Read more at http://www.shopthepig.com/about-us/.
My dad, William Perleberg, managed the Schultz Bros. store in Plymouth, WI, for years (from the early 1940s to the late 1950s). My brother and I had similar experiences to yours, spending much of our time there. It was wonderful. I have been looking online for a photo of that Plymouth store for a long time, but have never found one. Wish I had.
ReplyDeleteHI ...I just came across your article randomly as I was doing some internet searching for Schultz Bros for my son's question to me for a "who was your first boss" exercise he was doing for a class assignment.
ReplyDeleteMy first job out of college was with Shultz Bros in Waukesha WI back in June of 1971 as an "assistant mgr". It was one of their best performing stores at the time, with a great manager and profitable business. I just wanted something to tide me over because my fiance still had a year to go to graduate from Carroll College (also in Waukesha) so I figured I would just hang out and make a little money till she graduated. Little did I know, it would launch a 45 year career in retail!!!!
A year into my first big job at Shultz in thier store in Waukesha, I was was hired for a assistant buyer job at their warehouse in North Chicago. They were bringing in a couple people to help their buyers. That old warehouse in Chicago was a real trip! At 6 PM every night, they would bring in a couple of Doberman Pinschers for security overnight....and then their handlers would pick them up at 7 am the next morning! Pretty cool security, eh?! Was in a real seedy neighborhood that I am sure has long been torn down and replaced with more current digs.
The company moved out of Chicago into a brand new spanking warehouse in Lake Zurich, just about the time I was getting married sometime in 1974-5 or so. It was a pretty wild ride getting that place all set up and functioning, but it turned out to be a great move for me, because I had moved after marrying into a cheap little rental house in Barrington...followed up by buying a place in Cary IL about a year later. So the location in Lake Zurich was fabulous for a short commute.
Eventually I bailed out of Schultz in 1977 because I sensed that I was not going to be promoted to buyer anytime soon, and the company was just starting to feel the effects of the Walmart and Target expansions in the upper midwest. I sensed that Shultz's long term future was in jeapordy, and since I had saved some money from my early career at the chain, I decided to quit and go back to school to earn my MBA.
I enrolled at Loyola of Chicago, graduated a year later and ended up taking a job with Target in their buying dept. That started a 45 year career at Target and several other chains until I moved my family up to Washington DC to take a membership and business development position with the National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS)...and followed by other retail trade associations serving the retail sector from 2000 on until finally retiring from the American Pharmacists Association in 2015.
Looking back on what I have written, it seems like this story is much more about me than Schultz, but I often wish I had taken better notes and recorded what I was doing and the people I worked with during that 5 year or so history at my first job out of college. It was the foundation for a long and prosperous career, and I can't help think today how nice it would be to have appreciated the opportunity more so living thru it than now reminiscing about it 50 years later!
If any of my old collegues from those late years of the Shultz Bros want to reach out to me for conversation, feel free to contact me at lanceclark@aol.com.
PS...there was no connection between Piggly Wiggly and Shultz Bros. as was speculated above.