The Grand Opening of that iconic institution took place seventy years ago this week. Above is the full-page ad that ran in the Lorain Journal back on Feb. 19, 1953.
It's interesting thinking about how that stretch of Oberlin Avenue used to be all farmland, outside of Lorain city limits in Black River Township. Then, as it became apparent that single family homes were going to be replacing the farms, savvy businesses like Whalen Drugs, Jay's IGA Foodliner and Willow Hardware began to move in during the early 1950s.
The page of ads below, which also appeared in the Journal on Feb. 19, 1953, provided some nice publicity for Jay's IGA Foodliner, Willow Hardware's immediate neighbor.
My family had a ringside seat for all the growth on Oberlin Avenue. My parents built a house on W. 30th Street a few blocks from Oberlin Avenue in the mid-1950s, followed by one on Skyline Drive in the mid-1960s.
4 comments:
I must be getting old because I find myself too often saying that I really miss those local, independent hardware stores. They were always far better than the big box stores. Where I live now we have Home Depot, Lowes, or a 20 mile drive to the nearest independent. Given how big the big box stores are it's amazing how often they don't have what I need. While on vacation a couple years ago and needing to make some small repairs, we stopped at the True Value hardware store in Cortez, CO. Great old-fashioned, small town hardware store. They had exactly what we needed, everything we needed, and the friendly and helpful employees knew exactly where to find everything. I would gladly pay more for that kind of experience, but it was actually quite cheap!
Agree. The old guys working at Willow always helped you find exactly what you were looking for. It was rare to go in there and find something without one of their knowledgeable employees working the floor helping you out. I truly miss that place............and the free coffee they always had brewing for their customers.
Loved that they would go through those dormire drawers of faucet parts and other odd specialty parts to fix things. They would sell and cut glass to fit and fix screens for windows. Andy's hardware also had ancient repair parts. Still we are a throw away society and I knew they wouldn't restart the store where they opened the tool rental place
Seriously, you'd explain something to or show those guys one really crazy part, and they'd be like, "oh yeah, you got yourself a pre-1969, 1/357th, galvanized Polish coffin screw there..." and would walk you right to where they were and hook you up. My dad and I were always amazed.
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