There are wars and politics, but The Post knew what was really important yesterday when it put the closing of a Denver hardware store on the front page. Business at Fairfax Hardware on East Colfax Avenue had declined to where it no longer paid to keep the doors open.
Several dismayed customers were quoted, and I know how they feel. Our downtown Gambles store — which sold hardware as well as appliances and furniture — closed its doors in December after a month- long going-out-of-business sale.
When I moved to Salida 32 years ago, our downtown had two other hardware stores besides Gambles. Patterson Hardware was a direct descendant of Bateman Hardware, which had an ad in the first edition of Salida’s Mountain Mail, issued June 5, 1880. If you look closely at some of our fading “ghost signs” painted on the sides of old brick buildings, you can find encouragement to buy your dynamite there.
The other was Cady’s Hardware, run by Jack Cady next door to Gambles. I fell in love on my first visit. Jack had everything from stove pipe to cookware, and he sold nuts, bolts, nails and washers by the pound.
I needed one chest handle for some project. Chest handles came in pairs in sealed plastic bags. Jack grabbed one, slit it open with his pocket knife, and handed me a solo chest handle. I promised myself then that thereafter I would buy all my hardware there.
Back then, I worked at the local paper, where a typesetting machine got seriously out of adjustment. The relevant screw had a tiny slot and sat well back in the machine. I needed a screwdriver with a small blade and a foot-long shank.
All the long screwdrivers in Jack’s inventory had big blades — eights and tens when I needed a four. He put a long screwdriver in the vise on his counter, then pulled a bastard file out of a drawer. “Come back in half an hour,” he said.
I did, and we got the paper done on time that day. Jack didn’t even charge extra for customizing the screwdriver.
Great hardware stores don’t just find out a way to provide what you need, they also help you figure out what you need.
Our sturdy kitchen chairs are almost antiques. As my dad recalls, his mother got them shortly after World War II, when consumer goods returned after years of rationing. The chairs are steel and nearly indestructible. We’ve replaced them a couple of times. But then the new chairs fall apart, and we fetch the old ones from the shed.
One time the caps were missing from the chairs’ feet, which would thus gouge the kitchen floor. I consulted Jack Cady. “You could put crutch tips on ’em, and to keep the metal from pushing through, you could stick big flat washers in there.”
That’s what we did, and the 65-year-old chairs remain in service. That’s why it’s kind of surprising that this recession has hit hardware stores so hard. You’d think that when people can’t afford new stuff, they’d be shopping for ways to fix what they already have.
Jack died years ago, and with him, his store. I’ve known other great hardware stores — Stockfleth in Greeley, Traylor in Longmont — and they do seem to be an endangered species. I wonder how we’ll manage without them.
Not all was perfect at them. My dad often marveled at my mom’s uncanny ability “to find the stupidest clerk in the observable universe” when he sent her to the hardware store when he was in the middle of some home repair job.
But even if great hardware stores are vanishing, other things endure; my parents will celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary tomorrow.
Ed Quillen (ekquillen@gmail.com) of Salida is a freelance writer and history buff, and a frequent contributor to The Post.
