Huntington’s very own Heiner’s Bakery is now 100 years old and still flourishing
By James E. Casto
HQ 56 | SUMMER/AUTUMN 2005
As many as 14,000. That’s the number of loaves, buns and dinner rolls the busy ovens at Heiner’s Bakery can turn out in an hour. That’s certainly a far cry from the 200 loaves a day the bakery produced in its earliest years.
Heiner’s has been a Huntington institution for 100 years and is celebrating its centennial in a big way.
Today, the tiny bakery that founder Charles W. Heiner and his wife Kate started in a rented room at a Central City hotel has evolved into a big business with a sprawling plant, 400 employees, a network of regional distribution depots and dozens of trucks that deliver bakery products in four states. Heiner’s products can be found on store shelves throughout West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky, portions of Virginia and as far north as Columbus, Ohio.
Charles E. Heiner, who has managed the bakery since 1999, attributes the company’s success to its continued refusal to give customers anything less than a quality product.
“The name speaks for itself,” says Maebeth Lavender, Heiner’s marketing director. “People know that with Heiner’s you’ll get the finest ingredients because we take great pride in our product.”
Founder Charles W. Heiner was born in Ironton, Ohio, in 1882. His family moved to Huntington when he was eight years old. When he was 15, he became an apprentice at Schneider’s, a popular Huntington bakery at the time. He worked there for seven years, learning the trade and saving his money for the day he could go in business for himself.
In 1902, Heiner married Kate Schneider, a sister of the brothers who were his employers. In 1905, the young couple started baking and selling their own bread, first doing the baking in a rented hotel room, then in a small white frame house at 1321 Washington Avenue, where they worked downstairs and lived upstairs. At first, Heiner simply walked around Central City (now West Huntington), a basket of bread on his arm, selling to nearby residents. Later, a horse-drawn delivery wagon was put in service.
The bakery moved into larger quarters in 1907, and has repeatedly expanded over the years, eventually growing to fill an entire city block.
“I remember myself about 14 expansions after the house at 1321,” former general manager Earl Heiner Jr. said in an interview with The Herald-Dispatch earlier this year. “As we grew, my grandparents always put the money back in the business. They spent very little on themselves.”
Originally, Charles W. Heiner’s brother Frank was a partner in the fledging bakery, but he sold his interest in 1909. Later, Charles W. Heiner’s son, Earl Heiner Sr., took over running the business and, in due course, Earl Heiner Jr. followed in the footsteps of his hard-working father and grand-father. Today, great-grandson Charles E. Heiner is in charge.
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