Passed Down

In 1852, John Wise Sr. purchased two plots of land on both sides of a dirt road. Little did he know that the dirt road would eventually become the over-2,000 mile long I-70, and he would create a legacy that far outlived him.

John’s grandsons would eventually open a gas station in Callaway County in 1927 along what is now known as Old U.S. Highway 40, which would expand into an agricultural equipment store. That same store, fittingly named Wise Bros. Inc., is now on its fifth generation of owners.

Wise Bros. Inc. is now owned by David Backer and his two sons, Harrison and Matthew Backer. David was first approached by his aunt Blanche Wise, who married one of the descendants of John Wise, in 2014. The store had stopped conducting business on a daily basis for many years, and Blanche was tired of the neglect and peeling paint.

“She remembered the fun times that she had here when she was young, when it was a thriving, family-oriented business and farm,” Harrison recalled. “She did not want to die and leave it in a dilapidated state, and she saw my dad as the sole, capable farmer in the family who was able to take over and rejuvenate it to fulfill her goal.”

The Backers were not faced with such a simple task, however. When they took over the store, it still had the old cash register with the last ticket still sitting on it, dating all the way back to 1992. There were shelves filled with parts from the 1970s. There were notes written with a typewriter for David with instructions on running the store.

The Backers eventually renovated the storefront, modernizing the look with a new green and white color scheme. David splits his time between the store and his cattle farm in Fulton, Missouri. The store is now primarily run by Harrison and Matthew. Harrison handles more of the front-end of the store, such as sales and customer relations, while Matthew takes care of the back-end operations, such as the farming and mechanical aspects.

In two years, the business will celebrate a century of retail sales. It will have witnessed the creation of the interstate, the ever-changing nature of the business, and the births and deaths of multiple generations of Wises. Most recently, Adelaide entered into the Backer family on March 2, 2025, as Harrison’s fourth child.

Although Harrison would like to pass the store down to his own children, he ultimately would want them to make that decision for themselves.

“The end goal is to keep it a thriving, family business,” Harrison said. “We’re merely the caretakers. We don’t really see ourselves as the owners. We see ourselves as stewards of it. It’s fed our family for many, many generations, and we want to care for it so it can continue doing so.”