Charles Drury Sr. — businessman, entrepreneur — dies at 92

Charles L. Drury Sr. — a visionary businessman known for his work ethic, philanthropy and a national chain of hotels that bears his family name — died Monday night in St. Louis at the age of 92.

Along with his brothers, Drury established the Drury hotel brand in 1973. Over the past 47 years, Drury Hotels has grown to more than 150 locations in 27 states and is one of the most respected and recognized names in the hospitality industry today.

“Our company’s culture has been greatly shaped and influenced by the creativity and passion Mr. Drury contributed with every waking moment,” according to a statement issued Tuesday by Drury Hotels, now based in St. Louis and headed by Drury’s son, Charles L. “Chuck” Drury Jr.

“His vision and leadership helped grow the family-owned business based on a simple principle — treat guests like family,” the statement continued. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the Drury family.”

When told of Drury’s death Tuesday, Gov. Mike Parson said, “The first lady and I are saddened to learn of Charles Drury’s passing last night. Mr. Drury was a man of God who was a true champion for Missouri. He always noted that faith and family shaped his success in business decisions. Mr. Drury will be missed by many.”

In addition to his career in the lodging industry, Charles Drury had a profound impact on retail, education and health care in the Cape Girardeau area.

“Charles was a visionary,” Cape Girardeau Mayor Bob Fox said.

“You hate to lose leaders like that,” the mayor continued, adding “you just don’t find that sort of work ethic that often any more. He was one of a kind.”

“I think the only thing I can say is he was a tremendous man,” said John Mehner, president and CEO of the Cape Girardeau Area Chamber of Commerce. “He had an unbelievable family and a tremendous business, both here, in St. Louis and all over the place.”

Cape Girardeau city manager Scott Meyer was an engineer with the Missouri Department of Transportation when he first met Drury.

“He was an entrepreneurial genius,” Meyer said. “He not only built a great business, but he and his family have been great employers and have had a huge impact on our community.”

Much of what Charles Drury did for the community, Meyer said, was done “behind the scenes” and went “unrecognized by choice.”

Lasting legacy

Charles L. Drury Sr. speaks Jan. 17, 2008, to members of the Cape West Rotary Club about the origins of Drury Hotels and the company's roots in Southeast Missouri.Southeast Missourian file

Born in 1927 and raised on a farm near Kelso, Missouri, Drury and his brothers supplemented the family’s farm income with a small plastering business.

“They started plastering in their teens,” commented former Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder of Cape Girardeau, who worked for Drury in the mid-1980s. “By the 1950s, they were plastering commercial buildings, houses and schools all over this part of the country and throughout a five state area.”

Judy Wilferth of Cape Girardeau remembers one of the houses Charles Drury worked on.

“One of his first jobs was laying the tile in my parents’ home when they built it in 1950, and he made two mistakes in the tile pattern in my bathroom,” she said. “For years after that, we’d laugh about it whenever he brought it up.”

Years later, Drury would serve as vice chairman on the board of trustees of the old Saint Francis Hospital when Wilferth’s father, Leroy Roper, was board chairman. Both were involved in acquiring the property near the junction of Route K and Interstate 55 where Saint Francis Medical Center was built and opened in 1974.

“The whole Drury family has been instrumental in health care in Cape Girardeau for decades,” said Wilferth’s son, Jimmy Wilferth, who heads the Saint Francis Healthcare System Foundation. “Charles was instrumental in working with my grandfather in locating Saint Francis on the property we are at now.”

At the time, Wilferth said people thought Drury and his grandfather “were crazy” for moving the hospital “way out in the country because there was nothing out there. But they knew this was where the future was going to be. We wouldn’t be where we are today without Charles and the Drury family.”

It was in the early 1960s that Charles Drury and his brothers recognized the growth the interstate would bring to Cape Girardeau’s west side. In 1961, they entered the hotel business when they opened a Holiday Inn along Route K near the site of the present Holiday Inn Express.

After nine months with no profits at their new hotel, the Drurys hired an accountant to find out why. They discovered the hotel was making money on rooms, but losing money on the hotel’s restaurant and bar.

That discovery, Charles Drury would say years later, led to the construction of a “rooms only” hotel in Sikeston, the first Drury hotel. In a 2008 interview, Drury said the family initially couldn’t decide what to call the new venture so they defaulted to their last name.

Over the years, the Drury family diversified into several businesses, such as fast food restaurants and outdoor advertising, which Kinder said the family got into when “they saw how much they paid for billboards for their hotels and said, ‘We can do our own billboards.’”

Charles Drury was also keenly interested in retail property development, and in the 1970s began negotiations with the May Co. in St. Louis. At that time, May Co. was one of the nation’s largest developers of shopping malls.

After years of negotiations, Drury persuaded May to enter a 50/50 venture to build West Park Mall, which opened in 1981 along Route K across from Saint Francis Medical Center and about a block from the Holiday Inn.

“At that time, it was one of the first shopping malls in the nation outside a major metropolitan area,” Kinder said.

Education

Drury graduated from St. Mary High School (now Notre Dame Regional High School) in 1945 and was a major donor to the school.

“Charles and the Drury family have been passionate benefactors of the Catholic Church and her many missions, including Catholic education and especially Notre Dame,” said school principal Tim Garner in a statement Tuesday.

Along with his wife, Shirley, the Drurys were founding members of the school’s Education Fund Foundation, and in 2009 they received Notre Dame’s Annunciation Award in recognition of their support of the school.

“Our prayers go out to the entire Drury family as they mourn the loss of their husband, brother, father, grandfather and uncle,” Garner said. “The love Charles and his family have for Catholic education will continue to leave a lasting impression on the Notre Dame community.”

Drury did not pursue a college education. However, he would often joke how he graduated from “Kelso University.” In fact, he wrote a memoir a few years ago and titled it “Don’t Get Kicked by the Same Mule Twice (and other lessons from Kelso University).”

In 2017, Drury received the Rush H. Limbaugh Award from the Cape Girardeau Area Chamber of Commerce in recognition of his, and his family’s long and dedicated service to the community. It was one of many awards and recognitions he received over the years.

The following year the Cape Girardeau chamber created the Drury Family Spirit of Entrepreneurship Award in honor of Charles and his family.

A private family funeral Mass will be held at the Basilica of St. Louis (the Old Cathedral) with burial in St. Augustine Church Cemetery in Kelso, not far from the Drury family home.