Carr and Pritchard Hardware, Frederick

Column sent to Frederick Leader and Frederick Press

March 9, 2009

Carr and Pritchard's hardware store was located at 100 West Grand in an early building that stood where Cole Pest Control is currently located.

Carr and Pritchard's second location was a showroom for farm equipment and automobiles. New tractors and automobiles are parked in front. The second floor was "rental living rooms".

Carr and Pritchard Hardware sold many products

 

In the early years of Frederick, the young city featured no less than six hardware stores. No hardware store offered more, though, than Carr and Pritchard Hardware, where the consumer could buy much more than hammers and nails. Carr and Pritchard sold new cars, tractors, guns, and almost anything else that the enterprising Tillman County resident might need.

It was owned and operated by pioneer Frederick residents J.A. Carr and A.H. Pritchard.

Carr and Pritchard’s main store was located at 100 West Grand (an early building that stood where Cole Pest Control is located today).

A 1916 Tillman County industrial publication describes the store as follows:

“Housed in its own building, 50 by 100 feet, with floor space of 5,000 square feet, which it built in 1906 and 1907, at the corner of Grand avenue and Main street, this firm carries an extensive line of heavy and shelf hardware, queensware, harness implements, wagons, buggies and automobiles.”

 “In addition to the extensive store room, this firm also rents a warehouse which it formerly owned, but disposed of.  This building was built by Carr and Pritchard in 1910 and is a two-story brick structure, 75 by 100 feet. This is used for a warehouse for implements and wagons on one side and the other for a salesroom for automobiles. The second floor of the building is rented for living rooms.”

What did the big hardware store sell? Just about everything.

Their products included a full line of guns and ammunition; Cookware and kitchen goods (aluminum ware, queensware, enamelware); stoves (New Process and Perfection oil stoves, Bridge and Beach heaters and cook ranges, Round Oak and Cole’s Hot Blast); McCormick binders and hay tools; Standard mowers and hay tools; Studebaker and Weber wagons; Moon Brothers’ buggies; P. & O. farm implements; Oliver plows; Dempster windmills and pumps; American Field fencing (barbed wire, hog wire, and bale ties); Avery gasoline tractors; and the full lines of Chevrolet and Reo motor cars.

The 1916 article attributed the success of Carr and Pritchard to their willingness to extend credit to deserving farmers. “In times of adversity and short crops, when the farmers needed the assistance of men in this line of business, Carr and Pritchard did not hesitate to assist all the deserving ones and as a result many a farmer who has been successful was only able to weather through adversity by the assistance given them by this firm.”

The store’s owners were convinced that modern machinery would change farm life. “This is truly the age of the gasoline tractor in Oklahoma,” their 1916 ad read. “The tractor eliminates the heavy expense of buying horses for animal power. It eliminates the heavy expense of feeding and caring for this animal power. It lessens the expense of hired help. It will help to raise large crops. It will save hard work and make money by doing work not possible with horses.

The 1916 Chevrolet was available at Carr and Pritchard.

Here are a few things possible with the Avery tractor: breaking stubble, plowing, disc plowing, sod plowing, cornstalk plowing, orchard cultivation, cutting stalks, disc harrowing, drilling and harvesting, and, in fact, any line of farm work where the animal power has been used before."

Carr and Pritchard’s two lines of automobiles, the Reo and the Chevrolet, provided price selection.

The Chevrolets, featuring valve-in-head motors, were priced at the Frederick hardware store as follows: five-passenger, $550; fully equipped Baby Grand, $750.

Reos  were available in four sizes – three, four, five and seven-passenger versions, with motors ranging from three cylinders to six-cylinders.

Reos were advertised as the “most powerful motor built,” with a long cylinder stroke. The three-passenger roadster and five-passenger touring car were priced at $875. The six-cylinder cars cost $1,250.

Carr and Pritchard also carried a full line of tires, automobile accessories, and springs for any make of car.

Reo for 1916 at Carr and Pritchard.