| |
In Pictures: Historic Huntsville hardware store doesn’t really sell hardware
By Tom Adkinson
December 15, 2023
|
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – James and Daniel Harrison, whose Harrison Brothers Hardware has been on Huntsville’s courthouse square since 1897, could walk in the door today and feel totally at home. The only difference is the merchandise mix, because Alabama’s oldest hardware store doesn’t really sell hardware anymore. Instead, it sells contemporary gifts, art, classic children’s toys (marbles, Ragged Ann and Andy dolls, sock monkeys and such) and edible items, all the while hanging on to every scrap of hardware store history and nostalgia that the brothers and a second Harrison generation nurtured until 1983. The store is a delightful time warp. It’s not that decorators created the store’s classic look (wooden floors, bins full of nails, business ledgers), it’s that nothing much has changed since the last Harrison died. The Historic Huntsville Foundation stepped up to keep the store’s legacy alive.
On the square since 1897
Harrison Brothers Hardware has been a fixture on the courthouse square in downtown Huntsville since 1897. Two generations of the Harrison family operated it into the 1980s, when the Historic Huntsville Foundation took up the mantle to run Alabama’s oldest hardware store. Image by Tom Adkinson
|
Still ringing up sales
This National cash register started ringing up sales when the Harrison Brothers bought it in 1907. The volunteers who staff the store still use it today. Image by Tom Adkinson
|
Learning the elements of Alabama
Today’s merchandise at Harrison Brothers Hardware includes a variety of gift items, including this witty periodic table for the state of Alabama. Among the elements and their symbols are camellia (C), barbecue (Bq), boiled peanuts (Bp), football (Fb) and yellowhammer (Yh). If you don’t know yellowhammer, that’s a northern flicker, Alabama’s state bird. Image by Tom Adkinson
|
Nails by the pound
Old-style retail displays, such as these bins of nails in various sizes, show younger generations how hardware used to be sold. The store’s look is solidly old school, which is its charm. Image by Tom Adkinson
|
A not-so-modern light fixture
Kerosene lamps such as this one once were regular inventory items at Harrison Brothers Hardware. Now, this one and other items from the past are there to spark conversations about how things used to be. Image by Historic Huntsville Foundation
|
A history before hardware
A Historic Huntsville Foundation plaque explains that while Harrison Brothers Hardware has been on the courthouse square since 1897, the business dates to1879 when the Harrison brothers opened a tobacco shop on another street. Their tobacco business eventually became the hardware store. Image by Tom Adkinson
|
Trip-planning resources: HarrisonBrothersHardware.com and Huntsville.org
(Travel writer Tom Adkinson’s book, 100 Things To Do in Nashville Before You Die, is available on Amazon.com.)
|
