Tool Talk
General Category => General Discussion => Daily Howdy => Topic started by: Nolatoolguy on November 26, 2011, 01:11:04 PM
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Yesterday I was sitting around having some pop with the owner of a indepdent hardware store thats barely making it. We were just talking an he was telling me about how times have changed. The store has been there since 1906(not orginal building anymore) An I knew its been hard for him to stay in bussniess but it trually hit me with some things he said. What about the little man. What about the small indepdents. All these big boxes are taking over. I love the store that knows your name, the store with helpfull people. The store where you can go an just sit an talk.
Today I went to a different hardware store an hour away thats closing. I picked up a neat crescent display thats in another thread thoe. Anyway I was just thinking about the little store. It was so great but closing.
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Sad to see the passing of such stores.
The oldest hardware here is in its 85th year, and still viable, due to the foresight of the family that owns it. They have a feed store, a hardware store, and a large independent grocery in the same location. The are a Do It Best hardware, but have kept as much of the old timey ways as possible. I can buy one fastener, fasteners by the pound, or in the damn plastic things with the wrong number of units, all in one place. The people know the customers by name, live here in town, and are dedicated to staying in business.
Some prices are higher than the box stores, and they might be out of something, but they know what you need, and will get it if possible.
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We too have a local hardware that is in the 4th or 5th generation (I can't remember which) and they had to go Ace but old time customers are allowed to go up stairs to where the good old stuff is. Even the youngsters know you by name and aliment.
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We've still got our own here in Mount Vernon, KY
Cox Hardware.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHYiJNW0OU0
Tom
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We too have a local hardware that is in the 4th or 5th generation (I can't remember which) and they had to go Ace but old time customers are allowed to go up stairs to where the good old stuff is. Even the youngsters know you by name and aliment.
There's a hardware store just a few blocks from my house that's been in business for generations too, and like the one you mention, they've gone to Ace, but have stayed in business. I get people who know what they're talking about, and always good customer service.
The good old stuff is gone, but somebody usually knows about it.
The best one Sacramento had to offer was Newberts! It's become a used record shop now. Sigh. There are still a couple others left that seem to be doing decent business. East Sacramento Hardware serves people with older houses, and so its stock isn't limited to bubble wrap packages.
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The oldest hardware store in Huntsville is Harrison Brothers. It is the oldest in the state. When the last Harrison brother died the store was sold to the Huntsville Historic Society. They now run it with volunteers and mostly sell tacky stuff but in the basement are all the good stuff as for instance window sash weights. You have to live, or be working on, a listed historic house to buy that type of item. Can you imagine the look on a helper's face at a big box when you asked them "where do you keep your sash weights."
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Well here we are. Some of the last people who even remember what a hardware store is supposed to be.
But over at JC-Plastic-Mega-Mall they line up like cattle, by the mile.
Can't fault the warehouse stores though.
Its the people who are too stupid to know whats best for themselves in the long run.
And the average looks to be about 95-5 from here.
The only thing really wrong with a democracy
Is 5 minutes alone with the average voter
yours Scott
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Window sash weights! When I was working with the planing mill making windows, those were gold! We picked up any we could find!
After sash weights come the pulleys, the good pulleys. I still collect them if i can find them, and this summer I came across nine -- heavy cast iron puppies -- and they came home with me for sure. I don't know when I'll use them, but you can't wait to find some until you get the job. When you
get the job, they'll disappear from the market place. I despise spring balances...
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Can't fault the warehouse stores though.
Its the people who are too stupid to know whats best for themselves in the long run.
And the average looks to be about 95-5 from here.
The only thing really wrong with a democracy
Is 5 minutes alone with the average voter
yours Scott
Oh yeah. If more people insisted on good quality instead of cheap replaceablility, the warehouse stores
would stock good stuff.
Ha! Five minutes with the average voter might seem like an eternity.
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Window sash weights! When I was working with the planing mill making windows, those were gold! We picked up any we could find!
After sash weights come the pulleys, the good pulleys. I still collect them if i can find them, and this summer I came across nine -- heavy cast iron puppies -- and they came home with me for sure. I don't know when I'll use them, but you can't wait to find some until you get the job. When you
get the job, they'll disappear from the market place. I despise spring balances...
When I started Tree Trimming back in the late 60's we took sash weights (you could still buy them new at the hardware store Sigh Sigh Sigh) and cut them off about 1 or 1 1/2 inches below the eye and tied on our throw line in the eye. We used the cutoff as throw weights to put our climbing lines up in the tree. Throwing a pound of cast iron up in the air? What were we thinking? You could tell the old tree climbers by their broken noses/crushed cheekbones and missing front teeth. It was not long until the weighted rubber throwball was invented.
Pardon the blast from the past. And no I don't have any of those problems, I learned to tie a weighted monkey's fist in the Navy so that was what I used.
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Not just small town hardware stores, but also old survivals. I stumbled across one of these in San Francisco's North Beach. It's gone now, of course. I walked in and noticed the old oiled wood floor. Yellow ware bowls were on the shelves, and I bought one for a friend whose yellow ware bread mixing bowl had finally died. Looking around, I saw bright brass upholstery tacks in the floor. Odd, I thought. Then I noticed there was a pattern, and at one end there were three holes drilled in the floor, about one inch each. A little more looking, and I realized the floor had been marked out as a giant ruler. They had three different diameters of rope, and those had been stored in the basement, pulled up through the holes, and measured on the floor. Rolls of chain were close by, too. They must have sold a lot of rope at one time...
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In the feed store section of our old hardware store ( the section that is 85 years old), there are measurements still to be seen on the old wood floor. Used for rope, chain, fence, whatever.
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This is my favorite. Boehlke Hardware. Built in 1927. It is in the unincorporated crossroads of Freistadt Wisconsin. I used to live nearby. I can still get hardware by the lb.. Steel roundhead rivets sheets of galvanized steel, farriers tools, I think that they still stock an anvil and the floors are made out of delightfully creaky wood.
the owner is third generation and also runs a plumbing and heating business out of the building. I have used the sheet metal forming equipment in the basement. They stock horse supplies, vet stuff. The store is tiny by today standards, but it is hard to stump them.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/77646587@N00/267298062/sizes/l/in/photostream/ (http://www.flickr.com/photos/77646587@N00/267298062/sizes/l/in/photostream/)
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And I'll bet Johnsironsanctuary that they can put their hand in a pile and come up with what you want. At least that's how they do it at Lewters Hardware in Huntsville, Alabama.
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Inside, the Cox Hardware Store in the video that leg17 posted above looks exactly like Boehlke Hardware. All those cool old wall cabinets with the tools displayed in the door. In the spring, they sell live baby chicks and ducklings.
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Wow, you guys have some cool stories about hardware stores. the fading away of the stores that built america. Not no big boxes.
Its just sad to see them fail.
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The nearest big box store to us is a couple of hours away. In our little town we have a Hardware Hanks that I have come to just love. The owners are a young couple that also farm and are very active in the community. I can get most anything I need there or they will order it for me and have it in just a few days. The store has been in the same location for many, many years and their business is doing quite well.
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That's the best kind, and it is good that they are young and know how to run a real hardware store.
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That is great Dakota Woodworker. It's a change to hear that kind of news.
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Great news! I imagine I'm not much different from the rest of us -- I'd rather pay a little more and buy from somebody I can get to know, and keep the money in local wallets. I don't like the anonymous, impersonal feel of the Box Stores. My closest hardware is an Ace, but it's still owned by the Cook family who started it umpteen years and several generations ago.
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Here in Camp, we had no hardware at all for some time.
The local Tribe bought out the old hardware then ran it promptly into the ground so bad they closed it. The government gives them all the money they want to start businesses, but no further money to run them (except the clinic).
So they buy any building or business that comes up for sale and start another "family wellness center" or whatever else made up title fictitious business.
Then close it after 3 months when the startup money runs out.
The hardware lasted longer. But eventually it went under too.
So we had nothing.
Well Charlotte was retiring. She owned Evans Mercantile, a business that started in the 1880's. It has been though many hands, but still alive.
A new couple to town wanted it and continue selling Levis and thread and bolts of cotton and the same stuff Evan's has always sold for the last 130 years.
Except we needed a hardware store!!
So we made them convert the back 1/2 of the store!! Seems every one of us hammered on them until they gave in.
It was working too. The store was up and running in a few months and we were all guiding thm into what was all needed.
But then the new guy got in a fight with Cooley and Pollard, the traditional hardware connection out at the county seat. Greedy bastards C&P, but they can be reasoned with by a reasonable man. And they are only company who would --ever-- deliver goods to Camp at all.
So what little stock is left is mostly picked over. The owner still drives the river road once in a while for supplies, but it'll never work trying to supply a hardware himself!
sigh
Life in a rough and tumble little town.
yours Scott
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>But then the new guy got in a fight with Cooley and Pollard...
You are getting closer to the truth. it is not all the fault of customers going to big box stores. The wholesalers who supplied the little hardware stores are largely no more. many of them succumed to greed, victims of the take over and milk it to death madness. Others decided to force all their customers to franchise or loose their suppliers, then crammed imported junk at them till they were selling the same junk as the big box stores at higher prices.
It's not easy running a small hardware store anymore, it's not very lucrative, the only reason to do it is because you love hardware, and there aren't all that many folks left who think that working 10 hour days for a tiny income shoving heavy stuff around and dealing with the general public is fun...
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AMEN!!!!!!!
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As Lewter Hardware was holding their Christmas brunch (buy while you munch), I thought the time was right to show my favorite hardware store.
(http://i467.photobucket.com/albums/rr40/plantshepherdplus/Tool%20Talk%20Lewter%20Hardware/DSC_0017.jpg)
The two story section is the original store and took over the two adjacent stores as they grew. Lewter's has been in business for 87 years and are now run by the third and fourth generations.
(http://i467.photobucket.com/albums/rr40/plantshepherdplus/Tool%20Talk%20Lewter%20Hardware/DSC_0019.jpg)
Warehouse across the street.
(http://i467.photobucket.com/albums/rr40/plantshepherdplus/Tool%20Talk%20Lewter%20Hardware/DSC_0004.jpg)
Entry through the side door. Note the red table loaded with goodies, is only one of several. I took this shot early or you would only see wall to wall people in the shot. As we say in the south, you couldn't stir them with a stick, latter on.In the feed store section of our old hardware store ( the section that is 85 years old), there are measurements still to be seen on the old wood floor. Used for rope, chain, fence, whatever.
Here's the way they mark measurements at Lewters.
(http://i467.photobucket.com/albums/rr40/plantshepherdplus/Tool%20Talk%20Lewter%20Hardware/DSC_0005.jpg)
For more see http://s467.photobucket.com/albums/rr40/plantshepherdplus/Tool%20Talk%20Lewter%20Hardware/
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Have enjoyed reading all the interesting stories of old hardware stores. Well where I grew up in the Dakota's the old hardware store is still open barely. It started in the late 1800's as a hardware store plus a funeral parlor. They still have the old horse drawn hearse in storage. It also has an old rope freight elevator to take larger items upstairs to cold storage. In time it turned into just a hardware store. Over the long yrs. it has only had three owners, the original first one then a father & know his son is running it. But has to go into some other trades to keep the doors barely open. Times are tuff in the small communities as the school is gone & also the grocery store is closed. The only thing still there are the post office & one bar. I enjoy history & information on old small towns USA
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Rudeawakening55 you said they still had the old rope elevator. In the 3rd Lewter picture, at the end of the goodie table is a large yellow X. That is the landing for the rope elevator.
You said that the hardware store was also a funeral parlor. My GrandPaw drove the horse drawn hearse for the Gurley Funeral Parlor that was also a part of the Gurley Hardware.
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Wow you guys got some cool stories.
I would love to open a hardware store down the road, but I just dont know how I could possibly compete with the big boxes.
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We have a mercantile in our town. It's been open in the same building for over a hundred years. Just yesterday, I was at the meat counter talking with the owner. The conversation went something like this:
"Jim, I'll have a half pound of sliced smoked turkey. And did you tell me one time that Redwing don't make boots in half-sizes bigger than 12?"
"Yeah-that's right. They go from 12 to 13"
"Well, I got the 13s last time, and they were too big, and the 12s are too small. And a half pound of sliced roast beef".
"Maybe try wider. You can get them almost as wide as they are long."
"A dozen slices of that chedder, too. OK, order me a pair of 12s as wide as you can get them. And a pound of link sausage."
"All right, I'll get those coming. They should be in next week. Anything else?"
"No, that'll do it."
I can't really imagine what it would be like without places like this.
This place has an old rope elevator, too. You walk right past it if you come in the back door.
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y55/gpritch/carshow08012.jpg)
This is the outside, during our town's annual car show in the summer.