Watson Hardware Has Been One-Stop Shop for Over 100 Years
A hardware store in Oberlin, Ohio, has served the local community for over 100 years and still is going strong.
Watson Hardware, a member of The Hardware Connection Century Club located at 26 South Main Street in Oberlin, is a staple in the community where customers have gone for a variety of do-it-yourself projects, writes Zachary Srnis in The Morning Journal. “I’ve owned this for 12 years, but the store has been operating since 1895,” said Jerry Anderson. “We offer all kinds of hardware. We also do a little rescreening and do a little lamp repair as well.
mostly the items you’d need for every project. This is one of the places where people come in and say we have everything they need. They can stay right here in Oberlin, and they don’t have to leave the city or go to the bigger stores,” he adds. Anderson said he bought the business as a career shift. “It was a good business opportunity,” he said. “I grew up in the area, and I’d been here to shop before. I was a building contractor, and I felt I was getting an opportunity to do something a little easier.”
Anderson said he thinks his business sets itself apart from other hardware stores.
“I think people like the attitude here; that’s a big part of it,” he said. “It’s almost like stepping back in time a little bit. Honestly, I think we have a lot of things that the big-box stores don’t have.”
Anderson, who has a message over the front door that says the business was in operation during the 1918 flu pandemic, said the business has done pretty well during the current novel coronavirus pandemic.
“It’s been challenging,” he said. “It’s been scary; it was tough at the beginning, but business has been probably a little above average.”
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