Letter to the Editor: Congrats Roziers

Dear Editor
Happy 120th Anniversary to the Rozier’s store in Perryville.
A few of us in the Community, in 1998, feared the Rozier’s store would be forced to go out of business and lock its doors. Wal-Mart had just opened its SuperCenter store at the opposite end of town. It’s 25 years later and customers are still shopping at Rozier’s.
The City of St Mary plays a vital role in the history of the Rozier’s store {Rozier Mercantile Company). St. Mary had a boat-landing for travel on the Mississippi river. That’s why it made sense, in 1874, to open a Rozier’s store there-the first successful Rozier’s store. It closed 80 years later, around 1955.

The second attempt, around 1880, at opening a Rozier’s store in Ste. Genevieve proved fruitful. It wasn’t until 1903 that a Rozier’s store opened in Perryville.
The Rozier families and especially the Lattes families(S generations) and the many Rozier’s store employees, past and present, are to be commended for a remarkable achievement: Somewhere in the surrounding area, for the past 149 years, there has always been a Rozier’s store open for customers to do their shopping.
How may other businesses in the State of Missouri can match such an achievement? Does the Rozier’s store hold a State record?

Jim Maloney
Perryville