Samble family keeps things clean, green in 21st century

Business dates to 1907, founded by immigrant

By K EITH O ’C ONNOR Special to The Republican

A leader in the fast-changing dry-cleaning industry, Belmont Laundry & Custom Dry Cleaners since 1907 has been helping to make people in the Pioneer Valley look good, while saving them time from cleaning and pressing their own clothes.

“My great-grandfather Harry Samble moved here from Glasgow, Scotland, and built a business on Belmont Street,” said Derek Samble, company president.

Textile cleaning has come a long way since the Roman Empire when “fullers,” regarded as professional cleaners, made a living for themselves.

Jump forward to the 20th century when Harry Samble first began his business and the process still looked primitive compared to today.

In the early days, a bicycle, then a horse and wagon, and eventually a truck would travel throughout Springfield picking up laundry to be cleaned. Clothes were washed in big tubs and hung on lines — all this before machines entered the picture to do the cleaning.

What has set Belmont Laundry apart from the rest over the years is the fact that, “We are creators, innovators,” Derek Samble said.

At one time Belmont was the only cleaner in New England using radio frequency identification chips with bar codes in their garments and entrance mats. It was also the first in the Northeast to put in spot cooling for their employees and a leader in filtration systems.

Today many dry cleaners in the U.S. are struggling to keep their doors open for a variety of reasons, or to put it bluntly, as Samble stated, “The dry cleaning business has gone down the drain. And COVID didn’t help.

“Suddenly people were working from home, they never got out of their pajamas, and there wasn’t a need any longer to continuously bring in their business attire for cleaning. Unfortunately, the pandemic took 75% of our business away, but thankfully we’ve come back 90%. With other cleaners closing, the volume had to go somewhere,” he added about their turnaround.

But the pandemic isn’t solely to blame. It started long before, primarily as a result of the introduction of washand-wear clothing and new materials like polyester that didn’t require dry cleaning, Samble noted.

“The trend over the years has been toward a more casual wear lifestyle. As Baby Boomers retire, Gen X and the Millennials aren’t dressing up,” he said. “So, there isn’t as much of a market to clean those suits once usually worn to a wedding or funeral.”

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