Sigfried Weis was born in Plzen, in what is now the Czech Republic, in 1846. He immigrated to the United States in the 1860s. Sigfried started a cheap merchant business in Selinsgrove by 1872, first known as the “Weis New York Branch” and then the “New York Fancy Store.” (This name followed a trend in the post-Civil War era to connect small-town stores to the hustle and bustle of New York. There were “New York Branch Stores” in such places as Carlisle, Scranton, York, Baltimore, Fort Wayne, IN, Topeka, KS, and Marysville, CA.) Sigfried’s business sold “notions”—everything required for sewing—and “fancy goods,” such as underwear, hats, and gloves.
When he arrived in town, the main notions dealer was Wagenseller & Sons, located along the Pennsylvania Canal. But there were certainly others. In the past ten years, Selinsgrove had seen a handful of general stores that sold notions. Schoch & Brothers, Keller’s Notion and Grocery, and Keeley & Miller all entered and exited the notions game before Sigfried arrived. Fancy goods, on the other hand, were relatively new in town.
Sigfried moved his business to the northeast corner of Pine and Market (“Schnure’s Corner”) in 1873.
His timing wasn’t great, given that Selinsgrove’s downtown corridor was about to be hit by a major fire for the second time in two years. That October, the Great Fire of 1874 swept along the central blocks of Market Street and turned many buildings to rubble. Sigfried advertised a sale the following month, promising great discounts on goods that had been “saved from the late fire.” He lost an estimated $7,500 in damages (over $200,000 in modern-day value).
As Selinsgrove was slowly rebuilt from the ground up, Sigfried kept moving forward. He went into business with clothier Solomon “Solly” Oppenheimer. (Sigfried was good friends with Adolph Oppenheimer, a clothier from Sunbury. They traveled together to Germany in the spring of 1875, and shortly after they returned, Weis & Oppenheimer was launched. It’s not clear how/if Solly and Adolph were related.) This store opened in the fall of 1875 by the Keystone Hotel (present-day BJ’s). In the 1870s, ready-made clothing was still enough of a novelty in the Susquehanna Valley to draw people’s attention. And like in his fancy goods business, Sigfried and Solly traveled to New York regularly to buy that season’s merchandise. They took care to distinguish themselves from traveling clothing salesmen who were known for shady business practices. Weis & Oppenheimer ads promised “small profits and quick sales,” consistent pricing, and the reliability that came with a business rooted in the community. They generated excitement with prize drawings (such as silver watches in 1877). And although they didn’t pay for customers’ railroad tickets (as some merchants in the Valley did), they noted that their prices were so low that customers more than made up for it.
In early 1876, Sigfried reestablished his fancy goods shop in the “Holmes Building,” the present-day home to the Kind Café. From there, he boasted of the largest stock of any fancy store in Snyder County. Umbrellas were a popular line that year. In 1877, Weis & Oppenheimer opened a branch store in Middleburg. Both business survived the economic depression of 1877.
SIGFRIED GETS MARRIED
In May 1878, Sigfried married Ella Bernheim, the twenty-one-year-old daughter of a merchant.
For three months in late 1878 and early 1879, Weis & Oppenheimer announced to the Valley that they planned to dissolve their partnership and thus must unload their entire stock. After the January 1 deadline came and went, the dissolution sale kept going. In April 1879, they updated their customers: they had renewed their partnership and would stay in business together. But eleven months later, in March 1880, the firm of Weis & Oppenheimer was mutually dissolved. Solly stayed on at the same location, and Sigfried turned his full attention to the original “S. Weis” store, which sold dry goods, fancy goods, ladies’ coats, carpets, and oil cloths. The store underwent a rebranding in the mid-1880s, when it became the Central Dry Goods Store.
HARRY WEIS IS BORN
In October 1880, Ella had the couple’s first son, Harry.
Under the new name, Sigfried maintained his basic pitch to customers: the lowest possible prices, quality goods selected from the “eastern cities,” and the widest variety in town. This was not a strictly cash business; he continued to take wool and mink furs in exchange for goods, and he started taking eggs and butter in exchange, too. The Snyder County Tribune noted in 1889 that Sigfried “has given a practical example of what honest dealings and strict attention to business can accomplish.”
SIGMUND WEIS IS BORN
In January 1883, Ella had the couple’s second son, Sigmund.
In the last ten years of his life, Sigfried was a director of the First National Bank. He was a venerated businessman in Selinsgrove by this time and seen as a pillar of the community. His sons soon followed suit. Harry attended Susquehanna University before going to law school at the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated from Penn in 1903 and was licensed to practice law. Son Sigmund attended Susquehanna University (where he managed the baseball team “on strictly business principles”) and Eastman Business College in Poughkeepsie, NY. Both sons joined with Sigfried in 1904 to create S. Weis & Sons.
When Sigfried died in 1907, the Valley’s business and civic leaders memorialized him as one of their leaders. His work in the community proved him a pioneering merchant for Central Pennsylvania and laid the groundwork for the Weis family’s legacy in Pennsylvania and the Northeast.
Harry (L) and Sigmund (R) in 1889
After Sigfried’s passing, Harry and Sigmund continued to operate Weis & Sons. When the first merchants’ association in Selinsgrove was formed in 1911, Sigmund was elected its secretary. Sigmund married Claire Gross, the daughter of Bloomsburg’s most prosperous clothier. And in March 1912, Sigmund and Claire spent a week in Philadelphia while he purchased wholesale groceries for a new store to be opened in Sunbury the following month. A new era was about to begin.
SIGMUND GETS MARRIED
In July 1911, Sigmund married Claire Gross of Bloomsburg.