214/216 Main St.

214-216 Main Street

This building was the location of Hughes Hardware= Western Auto for some 50 years.

The building was built in the early years of the 20th Century; as nearly as I know now, around1910. In its early years, it housed a general store and a funeral parlor. Later, a hardware store took over the space and operated after World War I and into the Great Depression, when, under the strain of the time, went bankrupt.

Our Grandfather, Walton (Doc) Hughes, remembering the shortage of and difficulty of getting hardware products after WW I, bought the building and the stock from the bankrupt estate. It was always family lore that the seller demanded payment for the purchase to be delivered to him in $5 bills. Why remains a mystery to this day.

From the time of Hughes' purchase until after World War II, the hardware was closed, but if someone needed hardware, they could go to the Drug Store and Doc would unlock the hardware to accommodate customers.

The second floor of the building, from the time of its construction, was an apartment house. Housing was scarce in that time, and evidently the apartments were well used. Their use as apartments continued until the early 1960's; indeed upstairs was my first home with my parents until we moved into a new home on Church Street in 1954.

After my parents, Gene and Marion Hughes Anderson, returned to Madison after Dad's wartime service. in 1946, our Grandfather asked Dad if he would run the Hardware business temporarily, until he found another job. Dad agreed, and that temporary job lasted until Mother and Dad retired in 1999. Both my brother Walt and I worked there all through our Jr. High and High school years, and Walt joined Mon and Dad as a part of the Hughes Hardware-Western Auto business until our parents retirement.