By GENE KEMMETER
of The Gazette
After about 85 years in downtown Stevens Point, Shippy Shoe Store has moved east.
The store, a fixture in downtown, has joined the development along Highway 10, opening a store at 5474 Highway 10 East.
Jim Shippy, a third generation member of the family, has taken over the store started by his grandfather, Frank, and supervised the move to the new location. The site is the third in Stevens Point since Frank started Shippy Shoes in 1914, moving from Marshfield where he had the Red Goose Store.
The first Shippy store was in the 900 block of Main Street, the site of a present-day parking lot, and Frank's two sons, Ralph and Earl, joined him in the store.
In 1945, Shippy bought the Kroger Grocery Store at the corner of Main and Water (now Third) streets and moved across the street to the present 949 Main St.
Then in 1965 the store was enlarged into the adjacent Badger Paint Store, providing two entrances onto Main Street. The Shippys enlarged again in the 1980s, this time adding an athletic and work shoe store across the street, as Earl's son, John, and Ralph's son, Jim, took over managing the store.
Now John has retired, and Jim has taken over. Jim has been in the business most of his life, starting about 1964 when he was in the seventh grade. He worked about 30 hours a week while he was in college and started full-time in 1982. And he still gets help from his father, now 83, who comes in nearly every day.
Making the decision to move came after Jim reviewed the situation with the downtown store.
A new Clark Street bridge is scheduled to be constructed next year and then reconstruction of Highway 10 on Clark and Main streets will follow. "I think we would have had a hard time during construction," Jim said. "We depend on traffic.
"We started polling people in January and got a lot, about 99 percent, in favor," Jim said, adding that the reception was even more favorable among customers from Wisconsin Rapids and Wausau.
The downtown location has presented problems with a lack of parking outside the store and trying to explain to out-of-town customers about how to get to the store.
The store has a niche in the business as a full-service store, stocking odd sizes, particularly wider and larger sized shoes, and carrying various lines of work boots. "We also have a lot of geriatric business," Jim said.
Buses bring in residents of the Veterans Home in King who need shoes with special widths or larger sizes, he said. When officials at the home would call to report they were coming the next day, store employees would have to park in spaces around the store and then move their vehicles when the King residents arrived.
Because the store and area lacked accessible handicapped facilities, Jim said store clerks used to fit people with shoes while they stayed in their cars because they couldn't get them into the store.
Also, he said, the budget area was in the basement of the store, an area that wasn't accessible to the handicapped.
Now, a handicapped parking stall is outside the front door of the store, and everything is on one floor, making merchandise more accessible.
He's also seeing people stop in who didn't know where the store was before, he said.
While the athletic store had been closed last year, the move has also allowed the store to offer some athletic shoes, mostly running, cross training and walking shoes. "There's not enough audience to offer football cleats and other specialized things anymore," he said.
The move to the new location was accomplished in one day, although Jim admits there was a lot of preparation work and then unpacking. "We did some dry runs before to try to figure out any problems and that helped," he said.
Packing the shoes was also important, with a number and letter assigned to every shoe so they could be unpacked in an orderly manner.
On Saturday, July 10, 1,500 cases of shoes (about 30,000 pairs) were moved from downtown to the east side, with about 100 cases loaded onto each truck. "We started at 8 a.m. and were out by 7 p.m. We were lucky it didn't rain," Jim said.
The cases were then sorted in the parking lot and put away in designated locations in the storage area. "We have a bit more shelving than at the old store," said Jim, showing off the two-story storage area at the rear of the store.
On Sunday and Monday, the cases were unpacked and displays were set up in the new store. "It's amazing how much different your merchandise looks," he said, referring to the large display area in the store.
Few fixtures or chairs were moved from the old store, he said, and new fitting stools had to be made because few manufacturers of those items remain.
Holding a shoehorn in his hand, Jim said young customers wonder what the instrument is when they come into the full-service store. Being a Shippy, some people say we were born with a shoehorn instead of a silver spoon, he said.