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Date: 3/29/2021
HOLYOKE – Harry Craven Jr. began working at the Highland Hardware and Bike Shop when he was just a young boy.
“My mother and father started it 75 years ago next month. I’ve been working or hanging out since I was seven or eight, it’s been going on a long time,” he said.
The store, now located on 917 Hampden St. in Holyoke, initially began across the street from their current location as a small gift shop selling items such as “stockings, zippers [and] thread.” Slowly, Craven said, his father began to form relationships with people in a local hardware wholesaler located in downtown Holyoke. He said when people would come into the store looking for an item they might not have carried, his father would contact people at the hardware wholesale store and order the item from them.
“He would order two, one to sell and one to have in stock,” Craven said. His father, he explained, worked for the Holyoke Police Department for decades while also managing the store.
“They struggled for a long time, my father was a Holyoke Police officer for 30 years. He would work the midnight to 8 a.m. shift and then come in here and work until 6 p.m.,” he said. “I remember back in the ‘50s my father would take his vacation from the police department in December and keep the store open until nine at night.”
Craven said as time went on, they began to carry more hardware items, paint and even expanded to toys at one point. “We got into the toy businesses around Christmas time,” he said.
He said when he was in “sixth or seventh grade” his parents moved the store to the location across the street, where Highland Hardware now sits. “They bought this building when I was in sixth or seventh grade, probably 1956 or 1957, and we’ve expanded a little at a time ever since,” he said.
Despite the toy business fading over the years as big companies emerged, Craven said one item they continued to sell was bikes. “The toy business was pretty much based around Christmas time, we would also get a couple bikes, trikes, wagons and baby doll carriages,” he said. “The toy business went away, but we stayed with the bicycles. The 10-speed bike was taking off, we never looked back at toys.”
Craven, who now works at the store with his children and some of his grandchildren, said while the store “went back and forth to find our niche,” they have continued to grow and adapt even in the midst of a global pandemic. Craven said when Governor Charlie Baker first gave the stay at home order in March of 2020, his store was deemed essential, but he stayed home for several weeks at his family’s request. “We were deemed essential because of the hardware, but also because the bikes were deemed essential as well. The kids made me stay home, after about four weeks I got sick of staying home,” he said.
Like most businesses, Highland Hardware shortened their hours to accommodate the flow of business. “At the beginning they shortened our hours because there weren’t really any customers, everyone was afraid,” he said. However, even after customers came back, he said they kept the shorter hours to give employees a break.
“When it got busy, they kept it that way because they were exhausted. We still kept those hours,” he said.
Bicycles, Craven said, sold out quickly last year during the pandemic and have continued to sell out. This, he said, along with the backorder or many bike parts has continued even today.
This, Craven said, has caused bike repairs to fall behind by several weeks. “Right now we’ve got a lot of bikes to repair, we’re about two and a half weeks out on repairing bikes,” he said.
He said bikes and bicycle parts were not the only items that were difficult to keep in stock and/or order for the store. “People were starting gardens, we ran out of flower and vegetable seeds fairly quickly. Paper products, that’s come back, but disinfecting productions, that’s still not coming pretty much,” he said. “Staples for staple guns, we were out for six months. Corner braces, irons, hinges, it’s all backordered even now. Hammers, we still can’t get hammers.”
Additionally, he said items that used to be relatively inexpensive were now being marked up due to price gouging. “Vinyl gloves, we have to sell them from $35 where we used to sell them for $12.99 before. Prices are just gouging,” he said.
He said despite the chaos of the pandemic and items being backordered and going up in price, customers were understanding. “People pretty much had an understanding we were all in the same boat with all the chaos,” he said. “Everybody tried to do the right thing, they wanted to stay safe and stay outside.”
Craven said this led to people bringing bikes in for repairs that hadn’t been used in a long time. “People were coming in with bikes they hadn’t used in 20 years,” he said.
One thing he said he hopes continues even after the pandemic ends is that people continue to use their bikes. “If nothing else, I hope the pandemic has gotten people to be on their bikes more when it’s the future, not just a little buzzword,” he said. “It’s good exercise to get outside.”
Store hours and additional information for the store can be found at the website on https://www.highlandbike.com/who-we-are.html or on the Highland Hardware Facebook page.