This family-owned store offers a dash of humor along with its nuts and bolts, paint and other 80,000 items of traditional hardware supplies.
From the leg lamp in the black fishnet stocking that adorns the front window to the bison head by the counter and the restored 1840 tin ceiling, it's a slice of small-town character.
Customers often are greeted by name, and the store's eclectic selection includes weather vanes, Pittsburgh Paints, wheelbarrows, standard hardware supplies and lots of advice.
Brothers Bill and Jim Reichert and their sons run the store. Among the staff there's 80 years of experience in industry, construction and building trades. "If we don't know about it, we'll find out about it, and if we don't have it, we'll get it," they said. The store also does mill work and will make customers new windows. It also will replace screens, generally on a one-day turnaround.
The store even has started a new village tradition, the lighting of the leg lamp for the holiday season. The 2010 ceremony will be the fifth annual extravaganza. It has grown from humble beginnings to last year's festivities featuring a local dance team, the Tigerettes, doing a Rockette-style line dance, an antique fire truck and lots of laughter.