Towns and Nature: Fort Wayne, IN: Wayne Candies (Bun Bar)

Sunday, August 20, 2017

Fort Wayne, IN: Wayne Candies (Bun Bar)

Great Memories and History of Fort Wayne, Indiana posted
Andrew Barnets The building now I believe is Summit City Brewerks so at least it will live on.
[It has other tenants as well such as Anchor Films.]
Barbara Rogers They don't have Maple anymore and the ones they have are not good.

So we are seeing NKP tracks on the right side of the photo.

Valerie Harper commented on the above posting

I went for the maple flavored one. They were at least 2 inches in diameter. A Bun bar was a very rare and special treat in our household when I was a kid.

Garry Asmus shared
Day #16 of #nationalcandymonth These sweet little treats...BUN'S!
These were created in the 1920's by the Wayne Bun Candy Co. In Fort Wayne, Indiana! The Vanilla was the first flavor to be made! The Bun Bars are now apart of the Pearson's Candy company, who bought rights to manufactur and sell this candy in 1998!
Dan Reverand Patterson http://www.retrocandyonline.com/buncabama.html
Janice Steigmeyer George Maple was my favorite - last year bought lots - - should have tried them first as they were not as good as before - not really a maple flavor to them now. When I sent an email to the "new" company, their response was just on how I could purchase more --- NOPE not happening.
Daniel Galey We bought some at a craft show. Not even close.

The corporate ancestry goes back to 1902. In 1947 they copyrighted "Vanilla Cream Bun." They moved into the pictured building in 1950. It was built in 1905 for the National Handle Co., which became the American Fork and Hoe plant. After steady ownership from 1930 by W. Charles Dickmeyer, it was sold in 1974. Subsequent owners continued to use the plant until 1992. Fort Wayne provided a grant that helped it to be refurbished in 2009. and it is now home to multiple tenants [FortWayneReader]

2006 Flickr photo

At the bottom of this web page is a Buy link to retailers selling it, none of which I recognize in the Chicago area. They also imply an online retailer exists, but I could not find a link to it.

Update:

Randy Harter posted

Fellow fans of You are positively from Fort Wayne....I know there had just recently been postings on here about Wayne Candies, so as I'm usually working a month or so out on the articles I do for Fort Wayne Reader some of this information below may have been recently posted by others. However, hopefully much of it will be new to enjoy for you. I had a good time researching this piece off and on over a couple months and met with both the buildings owner, as well as had a beer with the two 60'something sons of the late Richard Dickmeyer, who I met, appropriately enough at Summit City Brewerks.
Cheers, Randy

Wayne Candies......

Courtesy of Fort Wayne Reader Newspaper

Fort Wayne’s beloved Wayne Candies started life in 1902 as the confections manufacturer Heit-Miller-Lau Company so named after the founders’ three names; Anthony Heit, Joseph Miller and Thomas Lau. The company made a number of different candies including the Mary Wayne and Lady Wayne Chocolate’s brand (named after Mary Penrose Wayne, General Anthony Wayne’s wife) and sold to drug stores, variety stores , and mom and pop grocery stores throughout the area.

In 1930 W. Charles Dickmeyer bought the Heit-Miller-Lau Company and changed the company name to Wayne Candies. Dickmeyer had been with the company since 1919, and for years previously had been the sales manager for Perfection Bakeries.

While Wayne Candies had made “nut clusters” along with a host of other candies they either sold in white bags or boxed with the chocolates in brown paper holders (much like Wittman’s Samplers today), in 1947 they copyrighted “Vanilla Cream Bun,” and the Bun Bar as we know it was officially born. By 1957 the Bun Bar was popular enough that it began to appear in retailers’ newspaper ads. In 1967 the company was issued a trademark for the advertising slogan “It’s Fun To Eat A Bun” which had been developed by well-known local advertising agency executive Louie Bonsib.

Wayne Candies had several locations over the years, beginning at 1131 South Calhoun, then 113 East Jefferson and finally moving into the old American Fork and Hoe plant in 1950, which had been built in 1905 for the National Handle Co. and still stands to this day at 1501 East Berry, a block west of Anthony. In 2009 Brian Schaper/Metro Realty purchased the old Wayne Candies plant and has refurbished and given it a facelift in part with a City of Fort Wayne Commercial Facade Grant. The resulting building renaissance now houses a number of businesses including Summit City Brewerks and Anchor Films. After Dickmeyer died in 1968, his family sold the company (a process he had initiated) and his son Richard Dickmeyer opened Key III Candies along with Frank Hawker and Charles Nartker in 1973 on Earth Drive at Engle Road which operated until 2012.

In the meantime, Wayne Candies and its Bun Bar brand was owned by a number of large confection companies. The first outside owner was the Leaf Confectionary division of W. R. Grace (Whopper’s Malted Milk Balls), who then resold it in 1974 to the Curtiss Candy division of Standard Brands (Baby Ruth and Butterfinger). It was while Standard Brands owned the company in the late 1970’s that the Reggie Bar (essentially a repackaged Caramel Bun Bar) named after baseball player Reggie Jackson was made in the Fort Wayne plant.

Standard Brands later merged with NABISCO in 1981 and they then sold Wayne Candies to the German firm Storck USA, makers of Werther’s Original,
who later divested of it in 1992 to Pittsburgh Food and Beverage, owners of the Clark Bar and Slo Poke brands. They shuttered the local plant for good and moved production to Pennsylvania in 1995. A scant three years later in 1998, Pittsburgh Food and Beverage went bankrupt and the brand was picked up by Pearson’s Candy Company of St. Paul, MN, makers of Bit-O-Honey, Coconut Patties, Mint Patties, Nut Goodie, and now Bun Bars still deliciously manufactured in Vanilla, Maple and Caramel. (1976 Image courtesy of ACPL)
Randy Harter is a Fort Wayne historian and author of two books on local history.

Shawn Van Pelt posted
Old Bun Candy Bar building...
Jeff Sharpe That is not a current photo. It is now the Summit City Brewerks https://www.facebook.com/summitcitybrewerks/ (and has been for a couple years I believe.) and houses a film company as well on the other end. I highly recommend the beer and good food as well. The interior is nice, with the original old wooden beams.