Longtime local business Wallace Hardware to close

One of Valley Center’s oldest businesses, Wallace Lumber and Hardware Inc. will be closing its doors. Owner Erwin Jones is retiring at age 70.

“I’ve been here since 1983. I’m old enough to retire and the economy is not good” Jones told The Roadrunner. “Ever since the road widening we lost a lot of customer base at that point and never got it back.”

That affected business because, says Jones, “No one likes to go to a construction area and they started going somewhere else. People’s habits change.”

At the same time construction, which was 50% of their business, has been hit hard by the recession. “Plumbing and hardware just doesn’t do it,” said Jones.

Wallace Hardware was started in 1953 by Thomas C. Wallace (Joneses’ father-in-law). According to Jones, “He started as a pump repair shop and then he went into electrical. He was an electrical contractor all his life. He had “Dusty” [Jones doesn’t remember his last name] as his manager for a long time while Tom worked with electrical contracting and kept the store going. As the town grew he grew with it.”

The store has always tried to fulfill all of the hardware needs of the local residents, says Jones, who most enjoyed the interaction with the people of VC. He served as president of the VC Rotary Club and was on the board of the Chamber of Commerce for over a decade.

For several years his daughter, Teresa, has helped manage the store.

He will sell or lease the property and, starting on Wednesday, everything in the store will be on sale, starting at 20%.

Jones figures he will do some traveling in the U.S. and visit a lot of relatives on the East Coast.

“I’ve been thinking a lot of volunteer work. I’ve done a lot of that just being here. Maybe I’ll do something here again. That’s probably what I will do.

“I’m 70 now and it’s time to do something different except being here seven days a week.”

The stores’s last day will be whenever the last item is gone, he says. He has been told by a liquidating company that that should take about ten weeks.