Content about Iowa

Cascade, Iowa-based Cascade Lumber Company, a family-owned and operated retail lumberyard, is celebrating its 60th year of operation in 2013. Operating from a single location in eastern Iowa, Cascade Lumber operates a lumberyard in addition to a full-service home center serving retail and contactor customers. In addition, floor covering sales and installation are conducted from the Cascade location and a second outlet in nearby Monticello, Iowa.

Cequent Consumer Products, a market leader in household cleaning tools and automotive aftermarket products, announced the asset purchase of Harper Brush Works, located in Fairfield, Iowa.

John Aleva, president of Cequent Consumer Products, said the acquisition was a way of expanding the Solon, Ohio-based company beyond automotive products.

Among the top 10 companies on the 2012 Home Channel News Industry Scoreboard, none grew faster than Brentwood, Tenn.-based Tractor Supply. The farm-and-ranch lifestyle provider showed a 16.3% sales increase and an overall ranking of seventh on the Top 300 retailer list.

Rural King Supply of Mattoon, Ill., moved up the list from 25th to 22nd. Also moving up the rankings were Atwood Ranch & Home of Enid, Okla., and Bomgaars Supply of Sioux City, Iowa.

The 2012 selections of Home Channel News Hardware Store All-Stars marks the second year of the state-by-state accounting of high-performance retailers. The common theme of “excellent customer service” runs through the entire list, but that’s just the beginning.

The list of Hardware Store All-Stars, one from each of the 50 U.S. states, continues with Illinois, Indiana and Iowa:

Mead Lumber, the regional LBM chain with locations in seven Midwestern states, has purchased four locations of Fullerton Building Center, according to an announcement on its website.  

The stores are located in Yankton, S.D., and Vermillion, Winner, and Norfolk, Neb. Fullerton will still operate its lumberyards in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

The supplier to Blain's Farm & Fleet has begun construction on a 43,000-sq.-ft. addition to its Janesville, Wis., headquarters, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.

Blain Supply serves 34 Blains' Farm & Fleet stores in Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa.

The May issue of Home Channel News compiled the first-ever state-by-state Hardware Store All Star list. Here are three more of the 50: standout stores from Iowa, Kansas and Kentucky.

From New York’s Island to the Redwood Forests, the great American hardware store maintains a revered place in the commercial history of these United States. 


On the following pages, Home Channel News editors travel state-by-state to find examples of leading hardware store retailers. To those deserving candidates not on the list — and there are many — we offer this advice as consolation: “Keep up the good work. We’ll get to you eventually.”