GOOD FINDS
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BY MEGAN PETERSON
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PHOTOS: TARYN BURKLEO
THE NUTS AND BOLTS D O W N T O W N M T. S H A S TA’ S O L D E S T FA M I LY B U S I N E S S
1957 Bea and Virginia Ramshaw | Photo courtesy of Bill Ramshaw
AS THE LONGEST running family-owned business in Mount Shasta, Ramshaw’s Ace Hardware has been serving the community from its same downtown location for 75 years. “With hardware stores, when the economy is doing well, people are building and growing. When the economy is struggling a bit, people are fixing, so hardware stores are always kind of a necessity for communities,” explains Bill Ramshaw, whose grandparents, Harold and Bea Ramshaw, founded the store back on August 6, 1945 – the same day, Ramshaw notes, “the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.”
But history and hardware stores go hand in hand, their quotidian spaces having long shaped their communities – especially in rural America. Their roots were planted with the frontier trading post as it evolved to the general store, then blossomed into “hardware” in the early 20th century as proprietors dispensed with the “soft” wares like textiles and food. These days, in an age of online shopping and disposable gadgets, there’s something to be said for a stick-and-mortar experience that delivers eye contact and a do-it-yourself ethos.4 continued on page 66
MARCH 2020
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