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When H-E-B named this former Piggly Wiggly as its Store No. 1 in the mid-1940s. It was at West Sixth and Colorado streets, and this is the view from looking south on Colorado.<\/p>\n
Contributed by Austin History Center\/C00950<\/p>\n
When did your neighborhood H-E-B<\/a> open and, over the years, how did it grow? What are its core attributes and culture nowadays?<\/p>\n These questions will guide our new series, \u201cCentral Texas H-E-B Histories,\u201d informed by articles in newspaper archives, city directories, store visits, crowdsourcing and personal interviews. Over the next months, we\u2019ll roll out short chronicles of the more than 50 H-E-B grocery stores <\/a>in the Austin area.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n We\u2019ll unveil them three or four at a time \u2014 like the popular \u201cJim Duncan\u2019s Austin<\/a>\u201d series \u2014 organized from the start chronologically by opening dates. Duncan\u2019s thematically presented Austin business histories will resume in these pages as well.<\/p>\n How did H-E-B spread?<\/p>\n The H-E-B store in Frisco was the grocery chain’s first H-E-B brand store to open in the Dallas-Fort Worth market.<\/p>\n Lola Gomez \/ Dallas Morning News<\/p>\n The June 26, 1950, Austin Statesman, the city\u2019s evening paper, reported that the chain entered the market in 1938 by purchasing four Piggly Wiggly<\/a> stores, which were converted to the H-E-B name gradually.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n At the time, the chain was anchored in Corpus Christi<\/a>. It wasn\u2019t until 1985 that Charles Butt moved the company\u2019s headquarters to San Antonio<\/a>, a better launching pad for reaching more territory in Texas and Mexico, where it opened its first store in 1997.\u00a0<\/p>\n From South Texas, H-E-B reached Houston<\/a> with its smaller Pantry Food stores in 1992, then officially arrived with large-format stores \u2014 and its Central Market<\/a> brand \u2014 in 2001. After testing the Pantry Foods concept in North and East Texas during the 1980s, the company introduced Central Market to North Texas in 2001, before opening its first official full-sized H-E-B there in 2022. (Yes, that recently.)<\/p>\n The iconic chain has still not reached El Paso and much of West Texas other than Midland, Odessa and Lubbock<\/a>. In addition, spots in East Texas \u2014 where Brookshire\u2019s reigns \u2014 and North Texas \u2014 even within the city limits of Dallas \u2014 are still without an H-E-B.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n H-E-B leadership routinely declines to reveal its expansion plans<\/a> until they are completely settled. Nevertheless, they study each region carefully and start buying promising properties years, sometimes decades in advance.\u00a0<\/p>\n Where were the first H-E-B stores in Austin? Are any of those still open?<\/p>\n In 2018, we spent some time in the reading room at the Austin History Center. There, we pulled city and phone directories from the late 1930s through the late 1940s<\/a>.<\/p>\n We were dazzled by the number of listed markets, some just a block or so from the next shopping option. A few were part of national, regional or local groups, such as A&P, Red & White or Checkered Front. Others bore cool names, such as New China (two locales), Handy Hut Food Pantry and Achilles IGA.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Until 1945, however, we found no listing for an H-E-B, but rather six for Piggly Wiggly. The year the war ended, the Piggly Wiggly brand had disappeared. Instead, H-E-B listed two supermarkets \u2014 larger and more varied grocery stores devoted primarily to self-service shopping \u2014 and six smaller, more traditional stores:<\/p>\n Supermarket No. 1: 2014 S. Congress Ave. Now: refurbished condos across Crockett Street from the Meteor<\/a> coffee, cafe and bicycle repair shops. (It had moved from 1502 S. Congress Ave. sometime in the early 1940s.) Neither of these is the address for the current, multi-level urban-style H-E-B at South Congress Avenue and\u00a0Oltorf.<\/p>\n Supermarket No. 2: 3106 Windsor Road. Now and then: Tarrytown Center<\/a>. This supermarket could not exist currently given the center\u2019s landlord, Jeanne Crusemann Daniel, who forbids the sale of animal products.<\/p>\n Store No. 1: 117 W. Sixth St. This\u00a0handsome store <\/a>was gone by 1954, when the ultra-modern Starr Building, also known as the American National Bank Building, replaced the grocery outlet. This landmark was lovingly renovated in 2009-2010. It became the stylish \u201cMad Men\u201d home of the McGarrah Jessee<\/a> marketing agency. \u201cI happen to be one of the people who went to work at that first H-E-B on West Sixth Street,\u201d May Smith told the Statesman. \u201cI\u2019m so happy you\u2019ve found all the stores.\u201d<\/p>\n Store No. 2: 824 W. 12th St. Now: ACC garage. This store would have served the Old Austin, Old West Austin, Clarksville<\/a>, Judge\u2019s Hill, Enfield, Pemberton and some University of Texas neighborhoods.<\/p>\n Store No. 3: 601 E. Sixth St. Now: offices. The intersection of Old Sixth and Red River streets was a place where all Austin encountered each other, even in a segregated era. Just a few years later, racial lines hardened with the construction of the Interregional Highway<\/a>, eventually renamed Interstate 35<\/a> during the 1960s.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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