Main St. Hardware & Supply

WARDEN — Chris Campbell didn’t start out wanting to run a hardware store.

“I was born and raised here and I’ve had a construction business here for about 25 years,” Campbell said.

He leans back in a big chair behind his big desk in an office on the second floor of Main St. Hardware & Supply at 113 S. Main St. in downtown Warden and smiles. About 10 years ago, Campbell said, he started the store because he got tired of running to Moses Lake all the time for building supplies for his main business, the construction and maintenance company Shademakers, which he founded in 1998.

“So it was kind of started selfishly, I guess you’d say, but that’s okay. It’s worked out great,” he said.

Main St. Hardware & Supply started out small, in the 1,400-square-foot space that is now filled by paint, sprinklers and hoses, which Campbell said he remodeled in an old building that was far readier for demolition than it was for a new tenant.

“You basically could see through the roof when we bought it,” he said. “So we rebuilt and started with that.”

Now, Main St. Hardware & Supply occupies more than 10,000 square feet in downtown Warden, selling a full line of power tools, grills and outdoor cooking supplies, HVAC ducts and pipes, roofing materials, lumber, paint and construction materials alongside household cleaning supplies. Campbell even sells mechanical lifts, and one Genie lift sits on display in their garden center.

About 15% of the store’s retail business is with the general public, Campbell said, with much of the rest coming from business people like himself who don’t want to travel to Moses Lake for supplies. Because of his work as a builder, Campbell said he knows what other builders, as well as managers at the many industries in Warden, need to keep their equipment and facilities going.

“The majority of our business is farmers and the (industrial) plants - things that keep them going,” Campbell said. “There’s a lot of specialty items that we carry (because) I see needs for that (product, which) people just don’t think about. Things maybe we carry and no one else around us (does).”

Two of the examples Campbell gives of things he carries are thermoplastic polyolefin, a plastic sheeting commonly used as a roofing material on commercial and industrial buildings, and the kind of steel doors used in potato storage or other commercial buildings.

“Stuff that your general contractor would not think of a small town store to carry,” he said.

Campbell said it’s harder to compete with big-box stores like Walmart, Lowe’s or Home Depot for the general public’s dollar simply because those stores can buy in volume and have lower overhead. However, he also noted that he can provide a level of personalized customer service that the chain retailers can’t, and people are constantly telling him his prices are competitive with what they find elsewhere.

“Just being more of a ‘mom and pop’ type place we know 99% of everybody that comes through that door,” he said.

Warden Mayor Tony Massa said Campbell’s business makes it convenient for town residents to shop in town, which keeps tax dollars in Warden as opposed to Moses Lake or Othello.

“I’m really lucky because I work in Moses Lake, but for folks who don’t, it’s an incredible opportunity, especially with fuel prices where they are,” Massa said.

“He does a really good job,” Massa added of Campbell.

Campbell said Main St. Hardware & Supply also tends to focus on carrying one major brand — like it’s extensive collection of Milwaukee tools — rather than several different brands.

“We have a wide variety of stuff. But we just don’t carry five brands. We’ll carry one brand of one thing and maybe one brand of another, just to try and get a little bit of everything in one store to service everybody,” he said.

And Campbell sees owning and operating a hardware store as his retirement job, something he can continue to do when he’s no longer interested in the hard work of building and repairing things.

“I don’t want to go out and swing hammers much anymore, I’m kind of getting tired of that,” he said. “I can sit here and help people and visit and, you know, work inside and out of the weather.”

Campbell said he remains committed to Warden, where he was born, went to school, and started his construction business. He said he’s had offers from larger companies to sell Main Street Hardware & Supply, but he wants to keep this business in downtown Warden and locally owned.

“This is my little thing, and I really enjoy it,” he said. “We may not be the biggest or the fanciest, but you walk in and the guys know your name. They know where you’re working, what you’re doing, and how your family is doing.”

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.