Hardware Store brings its past back to life

Mike and Becky Hutchison with three of their five children, Trent, 11; Mindy, 10 and Mark, 7. Sons Michael, 16 and Seth, 13, also help with the restoration project.

The Harry C. Moore sign slowly reappeared as workers uncovered it this summer while giving a facelift to the old building at the southwest corner of Cherry and Washington streets. The building, an addition to the original landmark Moore's department store, which stood on the east, will soon become Hutchison Hardware.

It was purchased in August 2009 by the Mike Hutchison family, who are working like Trojans, day in and day out, to transform the building into a full-service hardware store, the first in downtown Nevada in many years. But it won't be just any hardware store. It will offer a nostalgic look at what Grandma and Grandpa used in their everyday lives, as well.

"We plan to have a museum on the second floor, and a lot of old-time items on display," Mike said. Already the collection of artifacts arriving weekly in the family pickup has the town talking.

Sales and flea markets are the sources for many of the antiques as well as the Hutchisons' eBay buy and sell business they intend to continue.

Antique implements already hang on the brick walls. There are tongs for block ice, hay forks, pitch forks, washtubs and wooden sleds. A treadle sewing machine and Times Square clock Mike bought at auction sit among iron skillets --Griswold and Wagner -- and other heavy items.

The Hutchisons say their store will be convenient especially to folks on the west side of town who won't have to drive to you-know-where to get their hardware items.

"We'll be a hardware service center with a folksy atmosphere. We want to help people fix things that they can't fix themselves," said Becky.

The Hutchisons envision a kind of Flory's or Thomas' soda fountain -- which used to be on the Square --in a corner of the 7,500-square-foot building, where kids can buy candy and ice cream and pop like kids did in Grandma's day.

The Hutchisons live near the rural community of Hartville, Mo., and plan on moving to the Nevada area when their property sells. Hutchison Hardware will open its doors sometime next year, they hope. So far, they are in love with Nevada.

"We were driving around last summer looking for a suitable place for a hardware store and we liked Nevada and its lively southern-style square, so we just decided to move here," said Hutchison, the 45-year-old jeweler turned carpenter.

"I was a goldsmith for a long while, in it to make money," he said, "but I always wanted to own a hardware store. They say you should love what you do, and this is what I love and so does Becky, so that's what we're doing." The whole family is involved. There's Michael, 16, Seth, 13, Trent,, 11, Mindy, 10, and Mark, 7, all "home-schooled travelers," Becky said.

They've stripped down the building to the bare brick walls, painted the outside in attractive colors, shored up the outer east wall and, while renovating the storefront, uncovered original prism glass, a design of Frank Lloyd Wright, which directs sunlight into the back of the store.

The W. F. Norman metal ceiling will stay. It dates from about 1905 and actually is a remodel and not the original ceiling, Hutchison said. They've also found original windows of Moore's store on the east wall that will be re-opened.

The building dates to about 1879 and once held the presses for the Southwest Printing Co. In its new life, Hutchison Hardware will offer scenes from the past along with the hardware.