The building which today houses Rogers’ Dollar Saver store at 101 East Walnut was built in 1907 by famed architect A.O. Clarke for the Rogers Wholesale Grocery Company.
Rogers Wholesale Grocery was organized in 1905. Its line of goods included foodstuffs (e.g., canned and dried fruits, vegetables, meat, cereals and other grains, coffee, nuts, spices, candy and gum), office furnishings (e.g., desks, typewriters, scales, post office supplies), as well as other goods (e.g., cigars and cigarettes, pencils and writing tablets, thread, gloves). A number of well-known Rogers citizens were connected with the Wholesale Grocery Company; among them were Z.L. Reagan and Lockwood Searcy.
The Rogers Wholesale Grocery Company in about
1910, now the
Dollar Saver store. (Neg.
#N009958)
The exterior of the building is a red pressed
brick with limestone headers and sills at the
windows and doors — a Clarke signature — and
the interior features two large pyramid-shaped
industrial skylights and a freight elevator.
John Myler was the general contractor and the
Matthews Brothers were the brick masons, the
same folks who bricked the downtown Rogers
streets in the 1920s.
The building became the Dollar Saver store in
the 1970s under the management of Jack Parker,
who renovated and modernized the building;
it’s now run by Parker’s sons Bruce and Brent.