Nostalgic Items- Things Worth Saving: The Local Hardware Stores

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Have you ever thought about the things in our society no longer popular or around anymore? Thanks to an old 1989 Life magazine I found in my basement, I've discovered many things in our culture that have become obsolete, different, declining, or near extinct. Due to advancements in technology we have replaced and pushed aside many of these nostalgic items of our past. One such example is our local hardware store. Will these do it yourself stores continue to decline and be completely replaced by big box retailers? Established before the Civil War the hardware store grew out of the general store concept. These stores sold soft goods like clothing, food and hard lines. The early stores supplied the materials used to build the towns which arose in the 19th Century. Today, there are around 14,300 of these specialty type hardware stores left in the U.S. selling hardline goods. You still have your True Value and Ace hardware stores, but beginning with post WW II, Loews and later in the early 1980's Home Depot, challenged these D.I.Y. hardware stores for customers. The large chain stores mentioned offer more than 40,000 stock items for sale dwarfing what their smaller local town hardware stores offer. Based on this competition do you think Ace, True Value, and local hardware stores will ever succumb to the larger retailers like Loews and Home Depot? It would be ashamed to lose something as American as apple pie and baseball. Source Information: Wikipedia and History channel Life Magazine Photo: Pinterest/google