Unusual land swap helps Pierce City residents rebuild

PIERCE CITY, Mo. -- The generosity of a church congregation, a grocer and a pharmacist will help this tiny town emerge from the devastation of a spring tornado.

The First Baptist Church set things in motion by donating its parcel of prime real estate in downtown Pierce City to the Flummerfelts so they could rebuild the town's only supermarket.

The generosity inspired the Flummerfelt family to offer their former site to the Thompsons for a larger pharmacy.

Not wanting to profit from the others' acts of kindness, the Thompson family gave up its deed to make room for a snazzy city hall project.

"It's neat four-corner trade that illustrates what Pierce City is all about," Mayor Mark Peters said.

The land swap -- on which no one will affix a price tag -- was forged from a determination to prevent the southwest Missouri town from withering away after a May 4 twister wiped out a nine-block area of downtown.

Gone was the stretch of 130-year-old structures that had made the town a quaint tourist stop for antiques and crafts. The only grocery and pharmacy also were leveled, along with the city hall and fire station that served the some 1,400 residents.

The First Baptist Church, which lost its steeple and part of its roof, set up a makeshift sanctuary in the high school cafeteria. But the 200-member congregation was in the best position of all to help their neighbors, the Rev. Greg Bunn said.

"It's always been my passion that we were going to be a community-minded church," Bunn said. "After the tornado, the idea came up to donate the land to the Flummerfelts. Everything snowballed from there."

Attendance not an issue

Twenty-six church members unanimously voted June 8 to donate the parcel to Mike and Carolyn Flummerfelt so they could replace the supermarket.

It was not an issue that the Flummerfelts were not churchgoers, Bunn said. The congregation reasoned that if the town was going to survive, it needed a convenient place for residents to get milk, bread and other goods.

Tears filled Mike Flummerfelt's eyes when a half-dozen church members delivered the news at his home.

The Flummerfelts immediately began drawing up plans to double the size of Town and Country Supermarket to 10,332 square feet. It includes a hot deli. The number of freezer cases will grow from 12 to 22 -- with half devoted to ice cream.

The one thing that won't change: a Flummerfelt will still carry customers' groceries to their vehicles.

But the planning went beyond the new store.

The Flummerfelts knew Doug and Walda Thompson had hoped to turn the tornado into an opportunity to expand the drugstore they had operated down the street for 27 years.

So, they offered up their old lot on Commercial Street to the Thompsons. The Thompsons have since purchased the adjoining lot and hoped to begin construction in September on a new Thompson Family Drug.

But the question of what to do with the former pharmacy site lingered.

"We thought the least we could do was give it to the city," Doug Thompson said.

Mayor Peters was tickled.

The tornado left few businesses to generate tax revenue for rebuilding city buildings. The backhoe needed to fix streets and sewers was damaged. Not to mention the city must replace the fire truck that was destroyed while it was out alerting townspeople about the tornado bearing down on Pierce City.

In a rare offer to assist with long-term recovery, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has been working on a comprehensive plan to replace lost buildings -- including the city hall and fire station, which have moved into a doublewide mobile home on Main Street.

The option favored by residents calls for construction of a combined facility modeled after the former Burlington Northern Santa Fe train station that was a corner piece of downtown until the 1980s.

"With the Thompsons' land, we're halfway there," Peters said.

Meanwhile, dozers have cleared away all but a handful of buildings downtown. Plastic fence and barricades warn away sightseers.

Peters admits there have been a few squabbles over the rebuilding plans.

"We've had our less attractive moments -- but overall, I think people have kept their emotions on a tight leash," he said. "And when you see things like what happened between the church, and the grocery store and the drug store -- I know we're going to be fine."