Anacortes, best hardware store in the universe!

August, 2020

I love hardware stores. I have been known to spend hours and hours in hardware stores, not looking for anything in particular, but just looking, browsing, learning, and enjoying. I’ve been in hundreds (thousands?) of hardware stores in all my travels. Most are useful though somewhat boring. But a few hardware stores on this planet hold treasures of really cool and useful and amazing stuff.

Hardwick’s in Seattle was one of the best … and I do say “was” because, after 88 years in business in Seattle, Hardwick’s closed its doors in September, 2020. Hardwick’s was an icon in the greater Seattle area. People drove from outside Seattle, into the inner, crazy, hectic, bustling, center of this major city, just to get to Hardwick’s because they knew Hardwick’s would have what they needed … and Hardwick’s might have even better options!

But high property costs, taxes, and very difficult parking because of encroaching high-rise apartment buildings finally brought the owners of Hardwick’s to close the store, shutter the building, and move out. They are moving to Idaho. That’s a long drive clear over to the next state, Idaho, for those of us on the west side of Washington State.

But … I have now found another extraordinary, incomparable hardware store! It’s in Anacortes and has everything woman or man could ever need, including employees who know the stock, who know how things in the world work, and who are courteous and helpful and patient and who are really nice people. While camping here this week, and on my drive today through downtown Anacortes, I saw the store and (frankly with a yawn) decided to stop in and take a look. Wow!

Let me take you on a brief tour. I took hundreds of photos. I’ll share about 20 of them with you. This blog post is truly a very brief tour of this exceptional hardware store. Come with me and take a look …

It’s the Marine Supply & Hardware Company.

As a boater in Puget Sound and Canada for 28+ years, it’s not surprising that I was attracted to the word “marine” as well as the word “hardware”.

 

For sure, there was going to be some cool stuff inside, I knew that!

I was not disappointed. Look at all this stuff! Useful stuff!

Paint brushes, sand paper, sanding pads, bronze wool (and every other kind and grade of “wool” on shelves above, outside the photo), gas spouts (lower left), paint rollers, turnbuckles on the right side of the photo at least two feet long (and more of them further to the right, off the photo, that were much larger!), marine grade wood blocks for rope (lower right) … and that’s just in this one small photo.

Wrenches. The photo above doesn’t show the size. The largest one in the photo above was for a 3″ nut … the length of that wrench was about 3 feet long … AND that one wrench has a yellow-ing tag towards the left end of it saying it’s from 1923. This hardware store had all other “regular” wrenches in all sizes too, but this collection was superior. All of it for sale.

Notice the jar on the lower right of the photo above … Escudo, Navy de Luxe, Pure Tobacco (pipe tobacco).

Wood working tools old and new, for almost any shape needed, lightbulbs on the shelf above, gloves of any type on the shelves to the right, doorknobs and T-shirts below. What else could you need?

Oops, well, maybe you don’t NEED these, but all of them were original, not reproductions, and all of them were reportedly in working order.

Toys for the kids (or for you). Most of them were Texaco trucks, except there’s one Ace Hardware truck. But look at them closely … there’s one horse drawn tanker on the left, and one built on a Ford runabout, and one built on a Mack Bulldog chassis.

There was every screw and nut and fastener you’d ever need here. There weren’t huge bins or boxes of each of them, but they were all here … just ask the folks who work here and they’ll find it for you.

And there was fun stuff too. 🙂 Not just working necessities.

My mom had and used items like these in the photo above … with Celluloid handles. They were all the rage for women and men who could afford them. There’s a shoe horn in the photo above, used by men and women so they wouldn’t break down the back of their shoes.

 

 

A Willcox & Gibbs Sewing Machine Company, hand crank, self-tensioning sewing machine from 1933. Don’t miss the asking price of $700!

Ah, a more modern sewing machine that actually plugged into the wall … from Britain, from the 1970’s, a Straco Electr-O-Matic, sometimes known as “Little Betty” sewing machine. These were advertised as a child’s sewing machine.

But now for the best part of all. Not hardware … not nuts and bolts and hammers and wrenches and sand paper … not fabric or clothing or hats or books or kitchen items (yes, this store had those too) … not those old timey things that our parents or grandparents used … now for the best part of all … RV-ing stuff! There were several shelves of this stuff, but this was the best one (below).

 

There was great RV-ing stuff here, some useful, some just fun. There were books about RV-ing too. And other RV paraphernalia. But I loved this best … the travel trailer above was made from a sheet of iron … cut and folded … and then allowed to age and rust. The whole thing wasn’t very big, it just sat on a shelf, it was about ten inches long by five inches wide. It was so cute, I almost bought it.

I leaned down lower in order to get a photo directly from the side … to show the door and the window and the wheel.

I looked in my camera … into the view finder … and whoa! Who’s that! Who is that looking out the window of that tiny travel trailer? 🙂

Hey! It’s Little Towhee, my traveling buddy. She peeped and said “hey, Ann, this travel trailer is just my size.” At first, she wanted me to buy it for her. But then she fluffed around inside that trailer for awhile and eventually decided it wasn’t for her since it didn’t have a roof, or heat, or food, or a nice safe place to curl up for the night. She peeped again and said, “Big Towhee the Trailer is just right for both of us Ann.” And I agreed. 🙂

This marine/hardware store was an extraordinary find. If you are ever in Anacortes, it would be a great place to visit. As mentioned, these photos are a small fraction of the photos I took here. There is TONS more stuff in this store to see and enjoy.

But in the end, at the end of the day, this was my favorite item from this store … and it was Little Towhee’s favorite too.

It was just a little wood block, with a paper decal glued to it, and some holes drilled through and thread decorating the image. So simple and yet so profound. Please don’t miss the bird cage in the left window … perfect for Little Towhee to sleep in overnight … she liked that and so did I.

Whatever it is you like to explore, to learn, to discover … whether things or ideas or animals or the universe … never stop exploring.