A local landmark opened July 31, 1956, at 5300 Decatur Road, with the longest clear-span, monochord trusses ever used in any building in the world supporting the roof. The July 1958 Indiana Business Magazine featured Henry J. Eavey's flagship store in Fort Wayne in Our 40th anniversary: the largest supermarket in the world.. At 80,761 square feet, with a selling area of 50,250 square feet, it was the largest supermarket in the world at the time. Dan Vance photo caption stated: 1956 - The Eavey's Supermarket on Decatur Road, opening July 31, 1956, has been called the world's largest, with 80,761 square feet. it has a selling area of 50,250 square feet. One of its king-sized features is the 70-foot cornucopia holding the sign at the north end of the building. shown in the photo posted in THIS DAY IN HISTORY: July 27 in photos published July 27, 2018 in The News-Sentinel newspaper. The store was owned by Scott Foods, then bought by Kroger, who closed the store February 14, 2009, which then faced demolition until a new owner bought it in 2013 for warehousing.
January 9, 2013 Businessman Robert Troxel acquired the 58,000-square-foot grocery at 5300 Decatur Road with initial plans for warehousing, but he is reconsidering the best use for the site. Stated in the article
Former Scott’s on Decatur Road sold by Paul Wyche of The Journal Gazette newspaper.
[A construction crew was at the property on Decatur Road Thursday taking down the iconic cornucopia. The sign will be “safely stored for future public display”, according to a news release from the building’s owner, City Church. ... City Church said they talked with Community Harvest about the cornucopia going to the food bank, but there are no current plans to go through with that. The church is in contact with ARCH Inc., a preservation group that is supporting efforts to find a new home for the sign.]
Featured in LIFE in 1957, the 70 ft cornucopia has been a fixture of Fort Wayne's south side for over 60 years. The Eavey's grocery was, at the time, the "World's Largest Grocery". It became a Scott's grocery in the late 60's. When Scott's was purchased by Kroger in 2009, the location closed.
Initially a neon sign, the original material was replaced with the current steel in 1992.
It will be interesting to see what the future holds for this local landmark.
Straddling Decatur Road and U.S. 27 is an 80,000-square-foot building that many remember as Scotts and recall seeing the cornucopia standing tall above it. Today, it has been repurposed as a church, but when it was founded in the late 1950s, it was known as Eavey’s Supermarket. Eavey’s was profiled in Life Magazine as the largest supermarket in the world, and today is the story behind it! Read on for more.
The Eavey Company was based in Xenia, Ohio, and its roots began in 1865. Henry Eavey, who served in the Civil War, was a prisoner of war, and was injured, felt a calling to start a grocery business. Over the coming decades, the company continued to grow, along with his two sons, William and Earl Eavey. The wholesaler expanded and served hundreds of grocery stores.
In the 1940s, Henry’s grandson, Henry J. Eavey, gathered a group of associates to purchase the Indiana branch of the company, including its retail operation. Henry had returned from World War II and had big plans for the retail side. Initially, with a store in Anderson, Indiana, he doubled its size and re-opened the business in 1949.
Eavey, however, had his sights set on Fort Wayne. He conceived an ambitious plan, one that seemed almost impossible. A store with over 50,000 square feet of selling area, including a 3,500 square foot bakery, a live lobster tank, an entire ice cream department, a candy shop in the loft, lunch counters, a jeweler, a Spice Island capable of roasting up to 500 pounds of coffee per hour, a kiddie corral, a fish aquarium, an actual greenhouse, a brilliantly lit fruit and vegetable display on top of the store, and massive speakers above that. And to top it all off, the speakers would play weather tunes forecasting the weather, such as a tune to “Button Up Your Overcoat.”
That dream became a reality in 1957 when the store we still see was built. Within a decade, Eavey sold the store to Don and Marjorie Scott, the founders and owners of Scott’s Food & Pharmacy.
Pictures Old Building - Original Eavey Distribution Building in Ohio
As we round out 2022, I thought I would share a four-part blog series on H. H. Eavey and the Eavey & Co. business. The Eavey name and business have a long history in Greene County, and even have a connection to the Archives! Their original wholesale store on Main Street was where the Archives was located from 1996 to 2011!
In addition to the Muncie stores, Henry J. Eavey, Inc., also operates stores in Anderson, Fort Wayne, Richmond and Centerville besides a wholesale business. They have a new, ultra-modern warehouse consisting of over 100,000 square feet plus a frozen foods warehouse and general offices in Richmond.
The Eavey Company was founded in 1869 by Henry J.Eavey's grandfather in Xenia, Ohio, as a wholesale company, first serving grocers in Ohio then expanding into Indiana. It purchased a warehouse in Richmond in 1922 and Eavey was manager of this branch from 1935 until he entered the Army in 1942.
In 1946, Eavey and a group of associates formed an Indiana Corporation and purchased the Richmond branch of the business from the parent company.
Controlling interest in Henry J. Eavey, Inc., operators of the Eavey's supermarket on Nichols Avenue, has been purchased by Sidney B. Patterson, presidnet of Patterson Securities and Investment Co. of Fort Wayne and Robert Mace Jr., Anderson, executive vice president of Mace Food Stores, Inc.
ACCORDING to a joint statement made by Patterson and /Mace, both firms (Eavey and would continue to operate separetely and no changes in policy or personnel were anticipated.
Henry J. Eavy, president of the chain bearing his name, has announced his retirement Feb. 14, , but will serve as consultant to the company.
The present Eavey chain was founded in 1946, with other stores in Anderson, Fort Wayne and Richmond. In addition to the store in Richmond, Eavey also operates a warehouse which supplies many independent supermarkets in Indiana and Ohio.
Widely known in the grocery field, Henry J. Eavey was national president of the Supermarket Institute from 1957 to 1959.
ROBERT MACE JR. will be president and chief executive officer of the Eavey chain and Patterson will serve as chairman of the board. Other officers, including Bert P. Maher, vice president and general manager of the Fort Wayne supermarket, Matt Pein and Ross Harrington, will remain with the company.
R. J. Mace, president of Mace Food Stores, Inc., has appointed Kermit Barnes as executive vice president of the chain. He succeeds Robert Mace Jr. in that capacity.
The Mace firm operates four markets in Anderson and stores in Frankton, Shelbyville and Pendleton.
The Eavey building in downtown Xenia is a local landmark, but did you know it is actually the second Eavey building in that location?
One line in the blog: In 1908, a different Eavey company, the Eavey & Co wholesale grocery owned by Joseph Eavey’s brother Henry Harrison Eavey, suffered a great loss: the company’s building burned on February 3, 1908, killing two firemen and causing more than $100,000 in damages. This line indicates the Fort Wayne Eavey Supermarket roots included a family connection to an early Ohio coal business.
