Logans look back at years running local Ace Hardware
Months after selling the hardware store he ran for more than 40 years, semi-retirement might be starting to agree with Ellijay’s Mack Logan.
Selling Ace Hardware of Ellijay to new owner Bill Holt hasn’t kept Logan from visiting “the hardware” (that’s how he refers to the South Main Street store) as a customer or just to see what’s new.
“It’s been a lot of hard work, but really good. It’s been a good life,” said Mack as he and wife, Dorothy, recently dropped by their former place of business.
Building, rebuilding business
Mack, a Gilmer County native, first purchased the hardware store in 1968, then again in the mid-1990s.
The first time came a few years after he’d been drafted to serve in the Vietnam War. After going to Saigon, he finished out the two-year service at Atlanta’s Fort McPherson.
“I had just got out of the military, and we were both working in Atlanta before I went into the military. I think it was probably the last two weeks before I had to go back to Atlanta to go to work. I walked into the hardware one day and the owner, who was Anderson Holt, asked me if I was interested in buying it,” Mack remembered. “There wasn’t really much to buy it with on military pay, so I didn’t give him an answer then. We thought about it, and I thought if I was ever going to do anything (like that), this is the time.”
Back then, Ellijay Hardware was located on the town square at the corner where T.J. and Company Antiques now operates. Although he’d never worked in a retail setting up to that point, Mack worked to expand the store’s inventory and quickly learned the importance of listening to his customers.
“We went in without a lot of financial resources and struggled with it over the years, but we built it up to where it was doing great business. The business then was a lot different than it is today. You had a lot of sawmills out in the country, and we had quite a bit of local industry like the poultry plant and the hosiery mill,” he said. “We had a good inventory for that time. We carried regular hardware and were pretty big in appliances. We did a lot of TVs, and furniture got to doing pretty good. We had winter stuff like heaters and a few tillers and lawnmowers. Galvanized pipe was a big seller back then because you didn’t have plastic.”
“We put just about everything (we had) back into that store. That’s one way we made it grow,” Dorothy added.
When a customer came in and asked for something the store didn’t stock, Logan ordered two of whatever it was. He continued to use that strategy, which worked well through the years.
“I knew there would be a customer wanting the same thing somewhere down the road, ” he said.
A fire turned the downtown hardware store to ash and rubble on a freezing night in November 1986 shortly before Thanksgiving. Mack remembered being at a deer camp cookout when his neighbor stopped by unexpectedly.
“He said, ‘Mack, your hardware’s on fire,’ but I didn’t believe him. I figured he just wanted my seat,” he said. “In a minute, he came back and told me again that the hardware was on fire. When we topped New Hope Hill, you could see what was happening.”
“There was 110 firemen and 23 fire stations that came. Thank God nobody was hurt. That was a miracle,” Dorothy said.
The Logans had the two-floor building rebuilt, and the store operated out of a nearby vacant building in the meantime.
“We went out across from the telephone company (ETC), which was empty at that time. We kept all the employees and what little inventory that was saved we put in there and continued business,” Mack said.
Mack later sold the business, which, in 1996, moved to its present-day location on South Main Street. Not long after, he bought the store back from owner Randy Hyde and ran it until the recent transition of ownership, which took effect this past January.
“I was farming and spent some time on the county Board of Commissioners. I also had a Ford dealership in Blue Ridge,” Mack said about what he did in between stints as a storeowner. “I’d come in the hardware one day, and Randy wanted to know if I would buy it back. (At first) I wasn’t interested, but I saw an opportunity here that I thought would work, and it worked pretty well. It was an opportunity to do what I really wanted to do.”
Second time around
The Logans greatly expanded the store’s size and inventory in the years that followed. They renovated the neighboring Thriftown Grocery building, where new sales areas for furniture and clothing were added.
An outdoor garden center became a popular feature, while Dorothy added a new sales area for house and kitchenwares, as well as a bridal registry, to the mix.
Carhartt workwear, which Mack initially didn’t expect would move that well, quickly became among the store’s most popular items, which led to a lot more clothing being stocked.
“I figured we wouldn’t sell much of it, but it exploded on the bottom (floor), and we had to move upstairs,” Mack said. “We went upstairs and fixed that up. In about a year, I needed another building. When we had the building done, we moved what little clothing and boots and shoes we had over there and gradually filled it up. The business exploded there, too, and it gradually kept growing and growing.”
Dorothy said many local couples still remember buying their first furniture or baby bed from the store. Often that meant carrying a payment account for the merchandise.
“There was a lot of newlyweds who had almost no money (when they got married), and they would come in and need a refrigerator or stove or whatever. We would sell it to them on time, then they would come back and say, “We’re expecting a baby!’ Today, there’s a lot of them who still tell stories about that. They never forgot it,” Dorothy said.
“There was a lot of customers we worked with and helped. I think we were well paid for that down through the years,” Mack added.
Dorothy said, for years, customers have come from not only Gilmer County, but also other parts of Georgia and other states to visit the almost 40,000-square foot store.
“People would say to them, ‘You’ve to go see the Ace Hardware in Ellijay. You won’t believe it,”’ she added.
“The customers are what made us, and we had a real good customer base over the years. You’ve got to have that to make things work,” Mack said. “We had customers who’d come from other counties, especially from Dalton, Chatsworth, Fannin and Pickens. People would get accustomed to coming here. If you get those people (to come back), they’re going to tell others.”
Logan said another big part of the store’s success is it’s had great employees through the years. Some have been with the local Ace for as long as it’s been in its current location, he noted.
“Help is hard to come by now,” Mack said. “We weren’t losing employees, but trying to hire some more just (got) impossible.”
Mack said he remembers the very first customers who came through the doors at each of the store’s locations. He also remembers how, years ago, a customer in need of a new stove taught him a valuable lesson about doing business.
“Some folks are and some aren’t, but I guess I’m a people person. I always liked to talk to somebody about farming — hogs, cows, chickens or whatever,” he said.
“I had a customer come in one day, and he raised hogs. He and his wife wanted to buy a stove, but I started asking how his hogs were doing. We talked a little bit until he said, ‘Mack, I didn’t come in to talk about hogs. I came in to buy a stove.’ You’ve got to pick those people you can get that conversation started with, and, from that day on, I knew there were some I could start a conversation with and some that I better stay strictly on the business of what they were interested in.”
Staying busy, enjoying life
Also a longtime poultry grower, Mack said he got into the chicken business at age 7 when his mother bought him 50 chickens by mail from Sears and Roebuck. He raised them while selling the eggs and later raised both calves and chickens.
Working in his family’s cornfields, however, wasn’t for him.
“That’s the reason we’re talking today. The cornfields weaned me. I got all I wanted of that. I had a real good grandfather and dad that believed in working. They didn’t believe in losing any time either, so I got an early start,” he said.
Selling the store wasn’t an easy decision, but Mack said he eventually decided it was the right time. Anderson Holt, from whom Logan first bought the business almost 54 years ago, was actually a great uncle of new owner Bill Holt, he noted.
“I miss it, and I miss the customers, but there comes a time for everything. I told my wife this might be the best thing we could do to enjoy a little more of life. That’s basically what we did, and here we are today,” Mack said.
Fortunately, Mack isn’t running short on things to keep him busy.
“We’ve got a lot of rental stuff and farming. That’s basically what I’m doing. I’m in here quite a bit during the week, and I have a good relationship with the people here and with Bill. I’ve known Bill for years, since he was a young boy. He’s got a lot going for himself, and I know he’ll do a good job here,” he said.