Priest River Ace Hardware celebrates 50 years
(Photo by ROBIN HERRIN) Annie and Roger Gregory stand in front of Priest River Ace Hardware. The store is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a sale May 31-June 2.
(Courtesy photo) Annie and Roger Gregory shortly after their marriage.
(Courtesy photo) Roger Gregory is pictured in an old newspaper photo shortly after buying Buck’s Hardware.
PRIEST RIVER — The customers have been and are his favorite part of being in business, said Roger Gregory, reflecting on his hardware store’s 50th year of business.
Ace Hardware, located at 5499 Highway 2 in Priest River, is celebrating the milestone with a big sale May 31-June 2 to thank customers and the community for their support over the years.
“We’ve always tried to treat our customers like we would want to be treated,” Gregory said. “It’s the old golden rule. Customer service is something we take great pride in.”
There are only two others in the community — Ronnie Nelson and Buck Merritt — who have been in business as long or longer.
Roger and Annie Gregory, who bought Buck’s Hardware in downtown Priest River in 1968, are no strangers to hard work. All they have to do is look at the example of his father. At 12, his father left school in Austria after the sixth grade — something common for the era — and was at work harnessing up a team of horses and hauling logs. At 18, he immigrated to the United States and gradually made his way west to Bonner County.
Born in Sandpoint, Roger Gregory graduated Sandpoint High School before graduating from the University of Idaho with a business degree and commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. Assigned to Verdun, France, Gregory served in the area for 2 1/2 years and also met and married Annie Pierret are meeting her in a supply depot where she worked.
After serving in the Army for five years, Gregory was going to make a career of it. However, after a year in Vietnam and lots of moves, he realized the Army life wasn’t for him and he decided to get out in Seattle, Wash. Gregory went to work at the Bon Marche, now Macy’s. There was too much traffic and the big city life wasn’t right for a small-town guy. He will tell folks who ask that he wouldn’t live there for $5 million.
It was then that Gregory heard of Doris Buck looking to sell her Priest River hardware store. While she didn’t work in the story, her manager Charlie Campbell did and had been working there for 55 years and was looking to retire. Gregory bought the hardware store and moved back to Bonner County.
“At first , we didn’t have many customers, and I was going broke,” Gregory said. “At the grand opening, I had more flowers than customers.”
However, with the assistance of Julia Jachetta, who was working in the store and who was very helpful in getting customers to come in the doors. It then became associated with Coast to Coast Hardware stores and business started picking up. Later that year, Glenna Nelson (Wylie) came on board as well as Shirly Wylie, who recently passed away.
Despite the slow start and a big downtown fire in 1973 or so, Gregory said his employees are a key part of the hardware store and its success. “Julia was a character and worked there for many years,” Roger Gregory said.”Glenna, Shirley and Julia were very loyal and I appreciated them to no end and still do. Glenna just retired about 3 years ago after 47 years in the store, bless her heart.”
In 2000, daughter Mimi and her husband, Joe Hurd came on board and now run the store and “do a very good job,” he said.
After starting in downtown Priest River, the hardware store moved after five years to the property on Highway 2 that they were sold by Joe Murray and where they still are today. Part of the land was bought by Bill Boyd and Duane Veltri, who started North Country Department Store, and John Delay and Dr. Art Evans built the drug store and “the rest is history,” notes Gregory.
Now associated with the ACE Hardware chain, the hardware store has grown from its original 9,500 square feet to more than double that as the result of three expansions.
His favorite part of the business?
“All my wonderful customers for all these years, the people in Priest River, Newport and surrounding areas are great people,” Gregory said. “I think most people in small towns, are the salt of the earth.”
Asked what was the worst thing about running a hardware store, Gregory responded: “Anything with a gasoline engine.”