Traveler's Blog

It was bound to happen, I suppose. We have already had several customers in the store looking for a hinge or some nails or a screwdriver. We are, after all called the Café @ Williams Hardware and this building began its life as a hardware store. We are across the street from one hardware store and next door to another. The only hardware we have, though, is some of that new-fangled stuff-WiFi, computers and such. But, we enjoy talking to the hinge-seekers anyway and hope they will keep coming.There are reminders of our building’s life as a hardware store, though. The beautiful wooden floor is scarred with the activities of the former life. There are holes in the floor (now repaired) where lengths of chain, rope or plow line were pulled off of reels in the basement. There are crevices, not just cracks, where the metal wheels of a mule-drawn planter were rolled in and out of the store every day. There are v-shaped marks on the floor where Mr. Williams used a chisel to cut metal flashing to seal a fireplace in the parlor of a customer’s home. It is interesting to look at the floor. Because Mr. Williams ran a lumber yard as well as a hardware store, when the building was being built, the wood was planed on site at the lumber yard and whatever wood was at hand is what was used for the floor. We have a lot of pine, some poplar, and ash, to name a few. The wood is referred to as “dimensional” lumber meaning that a 2×4 actually is 2″x4″. Today, when you buy a 2×4 at the lumber store, it measures somewhat less than that, so our building itself is sort of an historical artifact-a remnant of days gone by. Come see for yourself. Can you find some of the different woods?