Nave & Mc Cord Mercantile Company - Other Investments

Other Investments

With the company back in the black, Abram began to diversify his interests, including the St. Joseph & Denver Railroad, and various banks, insurance companies and other firms.

In 1868, Abram co-founded Leech, Nave & Company in Kansas City, which later became a Nave & McCord branch office. In 1872, he co-founded the wholesale grocery house Nave, Goddard & Company in St. Louis. Later this store also became part of the Nave & McCord chain. Abram remained in St. Louis for 10 years overseeing the company before returning to St. Joseph. He also became a partner with James and others in the Smith-McCord Dry Goods Company in Pueblo, Colo., and a stockholder in the Henry Krug Packing Company in St. Joseph.

The C.D. Smith & Company was founded in St. Joseph in 1859 with Abram and James as co-partners with Dudley M. Steele and Charles Daniel Smith, the latter of which was the company’s manager. The company was originally a grocery wholesale business, but later became a drug store in 1886. Amazingly, the company remained in the Smith family for 133 years until it was bought by company employees in 1992. C.D. Smith Healthcare was acquired by AmeriSource Health Corporation in 1999.

In 1879, a new Omaha branch of the mercantile company was opened under the name Nave, McCord & Brady. John Speer Brady moved to St. Joseph, Mo., in 1866 and got a job soon after at Nave, McCord & Company. After 13 years of service, he opened the Omaha branch and managed it. Abram eventually sold his interest in the branch and it was renamed the McCord-Brady Company. The building still stands and became Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in 1995. Another McCord-Brady office was later opened in Cheyenne, Wyoming, from 1915-32.

More than 10 years younger than Abram, James McCord continued to branch out on his own with various mercantile and grocery businesses in Fort Worth, Texas; Oklahoma City; Kansas City, Mo.; Topeka, Kansas; and Hutchinson, Kansas; as well as a real estate firm in St. Joseph.

Abram’s wife Lucy died November 9, 1853, in Savannah. He married his second wife, Mary _______, about 1878. They ended up in a bitter divorce. Abram married a third time to Augusta Bagwell on Feb. 25, 1885. He had no children from either of these latter marriages.