What a great all original double sided shoe advertising trade sign for the shoe store called ‘Kroger’s’. This shoe store was located in Seward, Nebraska, and we have some excellent history documented with the history of this shoe store. This sign is made of wood and it is in the shape of a western cowboy boot. This sign is a two colored sign with blue and white. The white letters and outline are not a paint by actually a white contact like paper that has been applied to the wooden sign. This sign is all original still with it’s metal hangers at the top. This sign measures 48″ high and at the heel across to the tip of the toe measures 34 1/2″ wide. The thickness of the sign is 1 1/4″. This is a wonderful sign that shows character from being hung outside this business.
We acquired this sign at a public auction here in Nebraska. This sign belonged to a shoe company called, Kroger’s Shoeland. This auction was a closeout sale for Kroger’s Shoe Store that was closing it’s doors after 132 years of business. This was a 4th generation store, that started in business in 1871. This would date the business back to just four years after Nebraska gained statehood. Kroger’s was in the same building doing business since 1937. While we were at the auction there was an article that was posted sharing some of this history of the Kroger Shoe business. Below is the information that was shared in this article.
‘Then & Now – North Side businesses share varied histories: Shoes run in Kroger family’ ‘One hundred and thirty-six years ago Carl Frederick Kroger great-grandfather of Dave Kroger, immigrated to Seward from Westphalia, Germany; six years later he opened a shoe store that continues to serve the town today. Born in 1849, C.F. Kroger grew up in Bunde, Westphalia, where his family ran a cigar making business. Realizing he could not make a living off of cigars because people didn’t have excess money to spend on tobacco products, he learned to make shoes from the cobbler who lived next door. Everybody needs shoes, Dave Kroger said about his great-grandfather’s new trade.
According to him, back then shoes were available in only one style. Just something to cover the foot, probably with laces, he said. Bringing this trade to Seward, C.F. Kroger opened his first shoe store in 1871, four years after Nebraska became a state.
The shop was a free-standing wooden building located on the west side of the square, Dave Kroger said. In those days, leather for making shoes was shipped up the Missouri River and distributed from Nebraska City. However, C.F. Kroger could not afford a horse to bring his leather to Seward so he would walk, approximately 65 miles to Nebraska City and carry the leather back on this back, Dave Kroger said. After several relocations, C.F. Kroger’s shoe store came to rest at 518 Seward St. in 1937, where it still stands today.
“Several locations’ always Kroger’s, always shoes,’ said Cheryl Kroger, Dave Kroger’s wife.
Though the name was always Kroger, the spelling has not always been consistent.
In an attempt to preserve the original pronunciation of his name, C.F. Kroger replaced the ‘o’ in his name with an ‘oe’.
However Dave Kroger said his father felt this was confusing and non-Germans still mispronounced the name. To make things easier Dave Kroger’s father dropped the ‘e’ when he took over the store in the 1950’s.
Today the store is called Kroger’s Shoeland and is owned and operated by Dave and Cheryl Kroger, who are the fourth generation of the family to run the business.
Dave & Cheryl, who met each other while attending Concordia University, came back to Seward in 1979 to keep the store in the family. They had been living in Rockford, Ill. Where Dave Kroger had been a teacher for 16 years. Dave Kroger said he came back ‘strictly for the heritage of the store’. My father wanted me to come, and my grandfather really wanted me to come, he said.
According to him, theirs is the oldest shoe store in Nebraska and possibly the oldest in the nation run by one family.
‘Age is either something you have or you don’t’, Cheryl Kroger said. The only way to earn it is by getting older. Although the Krogers have acquired age, Dave Kroger has not acquired his great-grandfather’s shoe making abilities. With all the original tools at his disposal, he attempted to learn the art of shoe making. ‘I thought if I’d make my own shoes, I’d be cool as heck,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t even make a sandal – that’s the most basic footwear.’
Inside Kroger’s store a few relics from the past, including two benches from 1916, an antique sewing machine and numerous vintage photographs, provide nostalgia for Kroger and his customers.
Although Dave Kroger takes great pride in the history of his business, he may be the final Kroger to carry on the legacy. He said he told his children there would never be a job for them there.
“I wanted them to go to school and study’, he said. ‘I am the end, and I knew that from the beginning,’ he said. This article was featured in the Seward County Independent newspaper on August 21, 2002. The closeout auction was held on November 15, 2003.
We have a copy of this article with a photograph of C.F. Kroeger and a photo of C.F. Kroeger store front.
This is a fun fact to still have this history that goes with this nice advertising trade sign. I was able to acquire some other nice advertising items at this sale, look closely through my other items.
Update: March 17, 2005 Omaha World Herald Newspaper Headline: ‘House Fire Kills Longtime Seward Shoe Store Owner’. The fourth-generation owner of a longtime Seward, Nebraska shoe store that closed in 2003 died Sunday (March 13th, 2005) in a fire at his home. A burning cigarette ignited the blaze that killed Dave A. Kroger, 65, and destroyed his home in northeast Seward, said Seward County Attorney Wendy Elston. Kroger died of burns and smoke inhalation, Elston said, His wife, Cheryl escaped the fire uninjured. Kroger was born in Seward and graduated in 1963 from Concordia Teachers College. Three years later, he married Cheryl Leuthauser in Denver. Kroger was an elementary school teacher in New York and Illinois before returning to Seward about 25 years ago to help manage Kroger’s Shoeland, which his great-grandfather founded in 1871. Survivors include sons Scott, of Minneapolis, and Jon, of Lincoln; sisters Gretchen Gleichman of Champaign, Ill. And Evelyn Kubert of Lincoln; and brother Fred Kroger of Atlanta.
