doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Hometown Hardware & Sporting Goods Stores

Ted's mention a few weeks ago of his 1993 purchase of a Charlin LC-1 from the Denny Dennis Hardware Store coincided with traveling back to my Missouri hometown for the funeral of my last bro-in-law and stirred up a lot of good memories of my boyhood hardware and sporting goods proprietor - the very same Denny Dennis. We already lived in the area when Denny opened the store in 1957 on the high bank side of the Meramec river. It was mainly hardware, plumbing and paint but the smaller sporting goods section was where the magic occurred. Whenever my Dad needed something I'd ride down to the store with him and when we went through the door I automatically turned left to the gun counter while he headed for the hardware side. Denny could and would talk to anyone including a kid with lots of questions and no money. Over the years the sporting goods expanded and pushed out the other inventory. Eventually it became a strictly sporting goods store. Sometime around the turn of the millenium the store burned. They rented another location temporarily and built back "bigger and better." My first 22 and my first fly rod came from that first store as did a lot of dreams, many of which came true.

This painting of the early store hangs just inside the front door.


The current store.



Memories of your own home town haunt?

Johnson Hardware in Sioux Falls was similar, main store was all hardware, take a right at the door and you went to the gun store. As a kid I was never chased off, though I couldn't afford most anything they had to sell. Cliff Foss, a customer, held court in the gun department. A brother to Joe Foss, Medal of Honor recipient, Governor of SD and numerous other accolades, Cliff was a joy to listen to. Among his lines, "Joe was a terrible pilot but a deadly wingshot" stuck with me. I could tell many, many more stories but this is likely my best.

I bought my first hunting license and a 10X coat with my paper route money when I was 12. The store was run by two twin brothers who wore suits and bow ties. My father was there to advise me. I wore that coat till my late twenties. I must have looked like a coat with rubber boots stumbling through the deer woods back in 1964.

I was never at either store. I bought a couple guns from them, “ through the mail” as we used to say, well before the internet thingy that Al Gore Jr. invented.

The guys were honest as the day is long.

Best,
Ted

When I was a kid, Waterloo/Cedar Falls Iowa had several independent sporting goods stores. A couple specialized in golf clubs, ball gloves, football helmets, etc. Others in fishing tackle, bait, and guns. One of them had a sign advertising "500 guns!" A kid in my high school class got a job there. He neither hunted nor fished. We speculated that his job was likely counting worms and minnows when someone came in to buy bait.

Now there's one big Scheels and a Dick's which cover everything.

Of course if you lived in a big city like New York back when Abercrombie and Fitch carried a wide variety of guns and other shooting and hunting gear, you were also pretty darned lucky.

My friend, the late Bill Jaqua of Findlay Ohio started his sporting goods and gun shop business in downtown Findlay on the old courthouse square, in 1948. Bill started out being honest in business dealings, kept that reputation all his life. Sure miss him!! RWTF

Savannah's Cranman's Sporting Goods evolved from a pawnshop in the 1940s to a first class sporting goods store, fishing and hunting, until it changed hands in the 1980s. Edward Cranman was the owner. Mr. Cranman neither fished nor hunted but employed those that did and some had considerable knowledge. He offered from low to high end fishing and hunting gear. He patrolled the store with a cigar clenched on one side of his mouth. He was old school and expected negotiation on any item for sale. He carried a small paper pad, and would scribble down his counteroffer and hand it to you. If he didn't have it, he could get it. I once swapped with him a Ruger Red Label 20 ga. O/U for a NIB Sako Mannlicher stocked .308. I paid a little boot, but don't recall the amount. I won the Ruger in a raffle at a DU dinner. Ruger made the guns available the first year of production to DU dinners and they were scarce. Folks from all over the lowcountry and beyond were his customers as he was the only game around. Outside his store on the sidewalk were the familiar steel drums containing Calcutta cane poles for fishing. K-Mart and the box stores led to the demise of his successors' business. Here's the oral history of the store by his daughter, Harriet, 20 years ago, beginning at about 9 minutes in. I sure miss his store.

https://thebreman.aviaryplatform.com/collections/994/collection_resources/29865?embed=true

Fox,
I remember making the trip to Jaqua's several times. I was impressed with the trap range out back, where you could test shoot the guns. Browsing the store all day, made my day! Haven't been there in a long time.
Karl

Carl Meares and Sons Hardware, Fertilizer, Appliances and Sporting Goods in Fair Bluff North Carolina was THE place to go with my dad when I was a kid. It is also where he took me on my 13th birthday to buy my first gun of my own. We got home with a Remington Sportsmen Semi Auto in 12 gauge and I was walking on air. That is, until my mom saw it and found that it had cost $100 and convinced my dad that they could not afford that much. So, my to my dismay, he took the auto back. I got the borrowed 20 gauge single barrel of my uncle's that I had used for the past 4 years of so down off the rack and told my mom I was going hunting. I was gone for quite a while and killed nothing and finally decided to go on back home. When I mother asked if I killed any birds and I said no she said for me to hang my gun on the rack and get ready to eat supper. When I went down the hall to my gun rack, there before my eyes was the most beautiful little Stevens 311 12 gauge with 26 inch barrels I had ever laid eyes on hanging where the borrowed 20 had normally hung. Well, I still have the memories of the visits to Meares and Sons and that day in my mind and think of it often. Also, I still have that little Stevens 311. It will be my sons when I am gone. Sweet memories.

Locally, we had Minneapolis Outlet, on Lake St, it was a pretty decent neighborhood in the era of the store, has become a complete hell hole today. Bought my first Tobin from them, a 12 that was so heavy it could have been a 10, serial number 700. There was a small store in Blaine, Tecto, guns and ammunition only, I bought a Ruger 10/22 and my brother’s Savage Fox Double from them. There was a Woolworth’s at Northtown, in Blaine, run by actual gun nuts, when I bought my 12 gauge 1100, the guy opened every box to see which gun had the best wood, he probably had 10-12 guns in stock, and seemed just as excited as I was. Burger Brothers was a cool place, missed on a cased pair of Darne guns one day, but, bought ammunition, Filson, and a Brummy box lock from them that I actually made money on when I sold it. Rum River bait had fishing,and a few guns and a full time gunsmith, or, what passed for one in the early 1970s. My Companion 12 has a burn mark on it, from that gunsmith, to this day, that I would point out to my dad when he said all shotguns needed a recoil pad. I didn’t want the pad to begin with, but, he out ranked me.
We still have Joe’s, new location about a decade ago, heavy on fishing, skiing, and hunting. I haven’t been in Ahlman’s in a few years, that was pretty much guns and ammunition only, as I recall, and the older guys ran a tighter ship back in the day. Refuse to set foot in Dick’s and the last time I went to Cabelas, the gun library was closed, but, they had a glass case full of somebody’s collection of plastic Remington .22 rifles, with asking prices of over $1K each. Must have been three dozen of them, and I left pretty much right after I stumbled on that pile of dung. I bought my wife some jackets in the cave at Cabelas, and a DAM fishing reel on a Cabelas name pole, but, other than ammunition here and there I don’t know if I ever bought anything else-certainly no guns. The reel was a very expensive magnetic drag version, and I have never seen another one in my life, save one on an auction site on eBay, in Germany. Weird.

I haven’t been in a Sheel’s, or, a Reed’s yet, can’t comment about those, and likely just as well.

Best,
Ted