Hardware store celebrates 85 years of doing business in downtown Sweet Home

Growing up in a hardware store, Greg Mahler saw his family’s business as his own personal playground.

As a child he made forts with the boxes in the back storage room, and some of his earliest memories are of his father softly tearing strips out of catalogs to order supplies.

Last week, Hoy’s Hardware in Sweet Home celebrated 85 years of business. It first was established in 1939 at the tail end of the Great Depression. For Mahler — the store’s owner, a current city councilor and former Mayor — it’s a time of reflection and appreciation.

“I love even the smell of a hardware store,” Mahler said.

The store has a sort of nostalgic scent of paint being mixed and keys being made. He walks through the aisles with ease with his wife, Terry Mahler, as they switch from helping customers inside the store to managing the festivities of the business’s 85th anniversary with vendors and sales.

“We love our community, it’s tightly knit and it’s important to take care of our legacy,” Terry Mahler said.

That legacy started when Ivan Hoy founded the hardware store in downtown Sweet Home. When Greg Mahler’s father, John Mahler, came to Sweet Home in 1971 with plans for his family to move to the town, he intended to buy the store. The pair shook on the deal.

After moving into town, he went back to settle the deal and asked Hoy if a contract needed to be worked up for the purchase of the business. Hoy replied that it wasn’t necessary, that they shook hands and there wasn’t anything else to it, Greg Mahler said.

“He was a man of integrity and honesty,” Greg Mahler said.

His father continued to carry that torch, he said. In 1973, John Mahler purchased two acres at 3041 Main St. and constructed a 6,000-square-foot building. They proudly kept the name Hoy’s, he said.

Greg Mahler grew up in that hardware store before he officially took over the business in 2020 when his father retired.

He remembers there being a paint store next door to their hardware store, but the two businesses were never in competition. If someone asked for something they didn’t have his father would “check the warehouse,” somewhat of a joke he and the surrounding businesses had where they would grab supplies from each other to hand to their customers, he said.

“I always wanted to emulate (my father),” Greg Mahler said. “I followed in his footsteps.”

Both he and his father served on the city council, volunteered at the local fire district and oversaw the family business.

One Thanksgiving he remembers opening the store — which was closed for the holiday — for a customer whose pipes broke and wasn’t able to cook their Thanksgiving dinner, he said.

The store functions on a philosophy of exceptional customer service, he said. It’s what won them the awards and trophies that sit in their back office.

“We live here, we work here, we serve here,” Terry Mahler said.

Traces of the history are hidden throughout the store. There are yardsticks that date back to a time when phone numbers were only three digits long, green and white shelving John Mahler built and a safe from when the business first opened that contains a ledger and other memorabilia.

Through the years, the business has changed quite a bit, said Terry Mahler. They’ve added services and now take up space that has expanded to 22,000 square feet.

In 2012, the store became part of the franchise ACE Hardware. But the store still bears it’s original name “Hoy’s Hardware” with red letters at the store’s front, with the addition of “ACE” between the two words.

Old photographs reveal the changing configuration of the store. Some show Greg Mahler in a gorilla suit during Halloween or as Santa Claus around Christmas, interacting with customers in the store.

Times weren’t always easy though, Greg Mahler said. When Walmart set up shop in Lebanon in the 1980s, they saw their business decline, he said.

“In the ‘90s we suffered immensely, but the community has been good to us,” he said.

When times were tough, they leaned on the community, he said, recalling when community members volunteered to move freight.

The 85th anniversary celebration, in part, was a way to a recognize how far the business has come because of the community, Terry Mahler said.

Greg Mahler fell back on the words of Hoy, where it all began: “When you take care of the community, the community takes care of you.”

Jess Hume-Pantuso contributed to this article.

—

Shayla Escudero, Shayla.Escudero@lee.net