Gentry Hardware Wont’ Die
After Hurricane Helene, we faced a hardware store family’s worst nightmare, but the hands and hearts of friends and strangers are helping bring us back.
The Gentry family has lived in Hot Springs, N.C., for generations and ran a general merchandise store before laying the foundations of Gentry Hardware in 1946. The stonework building was constructed with pride, using locally sourced river rock and skilled local craftsmen. It continues to be a family-owned and operated old-timey hardware store and is the oldest business in Hot Springs.
The Gentry name has been around here a long time, and hometown people know it is a family name you can trust. My husband, Keith Gentry, falls into that category. Keith took over the store about 18 years ago while still working as an electrician, until he eventually retired and focused on the store full time. I met him in 2008 and began to work on my days off learning a little bit about the hardware business. After I retired from my job in 2015 and we finally got married, we began working at the store together. We created a hardware store that is the go-to for contractors along with locals making home repairs and items that attract our huge tourism base. My husband focuses on plumbing and electrical, and I deal with the hardware, paint, home, and pet sections of the store.
Our business is in a small rural mountain town of about 600 residents, and we do everything in the store the old-fashioned way. We are 30 miles in either direction to a big-box store, which makes our location unique. We do not use a point-of-sale system; instead, we rely on our memory and daily manual inventory checks. With every square inch of our 1,500-square-foot store packed tight, Keith and I have built strong relationships with the 600 residents, contractors and tourists who come from all over. Hot Springs is known for the Hot Springs Resort and Spa, which also features a campground along the French Broad River, and the sidewalk in front of the store is part of the Appalachian Trail. This brings tourists, campers, and hikers who stop in and say Gentry Hardware’s wooden floors remind them of when they went to the hardware store with their dads back as kids.
Then Hurricane Helene Arrived
Hot Springs is in a bowl, a valley below the mountains. Sometimes, it may not rain much in town but up on the mountains the heavier rains flow down. Gentry Hardware is right next to a bridge over Spring Creek, which runs right beside the store.
On Friday, September 27, it had rained three inches overnight from Hurricane Helene but it had rained the previous two days, saturating the ground to the point where it couldn’t absorb any more water. On that morning, the creek surged. We thought we might be safe after piling sandbags two to three feet high. The night before I filmed the entire store, expecting we might face a couple feet of water, but nothing more. By 10 a.m., the creek was already breaching the sandbags, and the water was lapping at the wheels of the parked cars. Keith and I exchanged worried glances and retreated up the hill behind the store, watching helplessly as the water continued to rise.
