The First Weis Store - Sunbury Or Selinsgrove?

 

Recently I came across an article stating that the first Weis Store was in Selinsgrove. Many other articles locate the first store in Sunbury.  So which is correct?

  Both. 

Sigfried Weis opened a Fancy Goods and Dry Goods store on the Northwest Corner of Market and Pine streets in Selinsgrove in 1884. This location was the old "Schnure Corner".  In 2006, this building was torn down.  Today the area is the Selinsgrove Commons, where the farmers market is held.

"The 122-year-old Weis dynasty began with a German immigrant named Sigfried Weis, who arrived in New York on March 16, 1867. Records show that Sigfried filed a petition for naturalization in 1874. Although it is not certain how this Weis patriarch supported himself during his first years in America, he eventually settled in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, where, according to an obituary citation in the Snyder County Tribune, he opened a small "notions and fancy goods" store that would eventually grow into the largest "mercantile emporium" in the county."

So technically, the first "Weis" store was in Selinsgrove, in 1884.

But the first Weis Pure Grocery Store, which became the Weis Markets Chain, was opened on April 1 1912, by Siegfried's sons, Harry and Sigmund.

Sigfried Weis  1846-1907

Owner of S. Weis Grocery & Dry Goods, Selinsgrove Pa

The building shown here, from the Weis website, is the store owned by Sigfried, in Selinsgrove Pa.

Harry & Sigmund Weis, sons of Siegfried and Ella [Bernheim] Weis.  Harry and Siegfried first partnered with their father in the S. Weis and Sons Store in Selinsgrove, before opening their own Weis Pure Foods store in Sunbury Pa in 1912.

The stores are numbered in the order they opened, and store #1 was located on Market street in Sunbury.

The first store was opened in the former Nesbit Cafe on Market Street.

Selinsgrove Times, 1912.

The Nesbit Cafe in Sunbury,  1900, where the first Weis Pure Foods would later be located in 1912.

The store was "revolutionary", for it's policy of accepting cash only, at a time when similar stores operated on credit, allowing customers to run a tab.  The cash only system helped the brothers to lower prices by as much as 25%.

By 1919, there were 4 Weis Stores in Sunbury. 366 Market, 263 Walnut, 820 Market, 145 Packer.

Offices and Warehouse, on South Second Street, Sunbury Pa

Store #2 in Harrisburg opened in 1915.   By then,  their father's general store business had ceased operations. 

According to Harry's obituary in 1961, the second store was located in Harrisburg, the third in Bloomsburg, and the fourth was located in Williamsport.  

Inside Weis Pure Foods, Selinsgrove circa 1922

On May 27th 1921, Harry & Sigmund opened their 26th Weis Pure Food Store, in Selinsgrove Pa.  It was located on the corner of Market & Walnut Streets.  It moved to the middle of the same block in 1934, and was destroyed by a fire on February 15th 1938.

In 1933, there were 115 Weis stores in 15 central Pennsylvania counties.

In 1938, supermarkets were making the shift to "Self service", where customers would find their own goods rather than having a clerk gather their purchases.  Weis closed several of their corner stores in Harrisburg that yar, and opened their first self-service, consolidated, supermarket.  By 1955 all of Weis corner stores had been converted to Supermarkets.

Weis Pure Foods, 1941

Weis Pure Foods, Sunbury Pa, in the flood of 1940

The name Weis Pure Foods changed to Weis Super Markets in the 1940s, then Weis Self Serve Markets, and finally Weis Markets.

Weis Markets, Sunbury Pa

Weis Markets, Sunbury Pa

In 1961, there were 39 stores in the chain.

1975 Advertisement showing the Selinsgrove Building where the boys began in business with their father, before opening their own store in Sunbury.

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Before opening his dry goods store, Sigfried owned a store on the west side of Market - today the Kind Cafe

1855 

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The Store in  Northumberland Pa, opened in 1939.

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In 1942, Weis Self Service Markets was located on the East side of Market St in Selinsgrove, between Pine and Walnut St.  It remained at that location until February 1962, when the store moved to the SW corner of Broad & US 522.  

1961 Obituary for Harry Weis