Over the last few years, the former Dittmer AG store at 7734 Hwy. 30 has served several here-today-gone-tomorrow-type businesses, but back in the day, especially in the early to middle part of the 20th century, the store was the center of commerce for the entire Dittmer area.
Larry Hawkins, 67, of Fenton, who owned the store with his father, Joe, from 1975 to 1999, said even then, when small grocery stores were becoming more scarce, there was something special about the Dittmer AG and other rural stores like it.
“There’s a personal touch,” he said. “When you had a little store, you knew everybody and everything about everybody,” he said.
Hawkins said he had good employees and regular customers at the Dittmer AG.
“We saw a lot of the same people,” he said.
Hawkins and his father purchased the little store after new Hwy. 141 went right through their “Mohawk” store in Fenton.
“It took the back of the building off,” Hawkins said.
He said they made the investment even though the Dittmer store needed work.
“It was old even back then and in need of repair,” Hawkins said.
The Dittmer AG was actually the third store, built in succession, in the town once known as “Dittmer’s Store.”
The original Dittmer Store, a general store that German immigrant Henry Dittmer opened sometime around the Civil War, was on Dittmer Road near where the Dittmer Baptist Church is now, according to articles written by Kathy Heincker in “Jefferson County, Missouri: History and Families” and Della Lang in her book, “On the Road to History.”
The town was originally known as Dittmer’s Store because when Mr. Dittmer established the first post office in the general store in 1870, he wrote the name of the town as Dittmer’s Store on the application, and mail addressed to Dittmer’s Store, Missouri, began arriving, Lang said in her book.
After Henry Dittmer died in 1876, he was succeeded by a series of store managers and postmasters, including William Brackmann, Amandus Crull (the local physician), William F. Dittmer, Fred W. Schumacher and Henry Heitman, according to Lang.
In 1899, however, something radical happened. Local farmers joined forces and the store became a Union, or Wheel, store, a concept that was gaining popularity at the time, since more people were leaving the farm to work elsewhere and depending on grocery stores to provide their food. The farmers formed a cooperative with each farmer buying stock in the store and sharing in the profits, according to Lang.
That same year, with life in the sleepy town changing, the name of the town was officially changed to Dittmer.
A new store was built in 1906. This time it was facing old Hwy. 30, Heincker wrote. Charles Stumm, postmaster from 1899-1906, was the first clerk in the new store, according to Lang.
Eventually, George H. Bruns came on as the manager, and in 1912, he was able to acquire enough stock to purchase the store, which became known as Bruns’ General Store, Lang said.
“Local farmers traded eggs, butter and chickens for groceries. Bruns made weekly trips to St. Louis where he bought and sold products … On the return trip, his wagon was filled with dry goods, shoes, rice, coffee, sugar and other essentials that were not locally available,” according to Lang.
For her book, Lang interviewed Bruns’ daughter, Mrs. Otto Kramme, who had worked many years in the store.
“She remembered scooping coffee, sugar, rice and beans from bins and packaging them for customers,” Lang wrote.
Bruns eventually built the “new” store that now stands on Hwy. 30.
“With the anticipation of the new Hwy. 30 bypassing his old store, Mr. Bruns made plans for the future. He purchased property along the route of the new highway and built a new store with living quarters upstairs in 1932,” Lang wrote.
Not long after that, George’s son, Herbert, and his wife, Bernice (McDermott), took over the operation of the store. Bernice became the Dittmer postmaster in 1944.
Herbert Bruns, like many businessmen, was active in the community.
He served on the Jefferson County R-1 School Board in the late 1950s and early 1960s and was a member of the House Springs Lions Club, as well as a charter officer with the Cedar Hill Community Fire Association, according to his obituary.
Later, the Hawkins family purchased the store, and they sold it in 1999 to buyers who tried to establish a deli and grocery, but the business didn’t fly. A fire caused some minor damage the building in 2002.
Hawkins, who is now a property manager and semi-retired, said owning a small grocery store was not an easy living.
“When you work for yourself, it’s a lot of work,” he said.
What made running a small grocery store even harder was when they began losing ground to the big stores, Hawkins said.
“The neighborhood grocery store has fallen victim to Walmart,” he said.
A local family now owns the building where the Old AG store used to operate, but it is not open as a business.
So, “Dittmer’s Store,” it seems, no longer has a grocery store.
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