Willow Hardware Ad – March 27, 1953

I'm sure many West-side Lorainites are still missing Willow Hardware since it closed back in 2008. I always feel a little wistful when I look over and see CVS on the corner of Meister Road and Oberlin Avenue (especially since it's my least favorite drug store).

Willow Hardware was just such a great store, with its helpful and attentive staff and wide variety of merchandise. Besides always having exactly what you needed, the store was just fun to poke around in. I remember buying art supplies, how-to-draw books, old decals and pots and pans there. 

At the top of this post is an ad from the early days of the store. It ran in the Lorain Journal of March 27, 1953. Willow had only been open for a month at that point, so it was still finding its way, advertising-wise. The use of a straw-hatted farm girl in the ad isn't that far off the mark, however, since much of that part of Lorain was still farmland. It's still hard to believe that much of that part of Lorain was still township land, outside of town, until the early 1960s.

I've written a lot about the various Oberlin Avenue stores and businesses located near the intersection with Meister Road. That business district just seemed to grow organically (and the shopping center strip got longer), as the neighborhoods grew and needed more services. (I wrote about that evolution back on this post.)

Anyway, thinking of Willow Hardware inevitably makes me think of my father going there regularly for grass seed or whatever. It also conjures up memories of my own trips there for help when I became a homeowner and discovered how confusing it was to replace things in a house built in the 1940s.