Jack Moore and his children, from left, Danny Moore, Jackie Justice, Davidson and Donna Lane.
Posted on 09/18/2023 12:40:46 PM PDT by mabarker1
Jack Moore and his children, from left, Danny Moore, Jackie Justice, Davidson and Donna Lane.
MOORESVILLE – While many things are constantly changing, one Main Street mainstay has been D.E. Turner & Co. Hardware, which celebrated its 124th year on Sept. 9.
On Saturday, visitors had the opportunity to enjoy refreshments, look around the store and learn some of its history, share memories and pass along congratulations to Jack and Danny Moore for their many years of work.
Family and friends dropped by the store to visit with Jack Moore, who has been serving the community for 77 years, and son Danny Moore, at the store for 36 years.
Jack, who will turn 92 in December, still visits the store everyday, said Donna Lane, his oldest daughter.
When asked what he thought of it all, Jack shared, ” I am doing the best I can” and said, with a smile, that he worked for free, but his compensation included the priceless joy of getting to see friends each day.
September 07, 2022 by Lee Sullivan
MOORESVILLE – Jack Moore took a tumble recently at the Main Street store where he’s worked for nearly 76 years. The damage was slight, but also a reminder – like a fading photograph in a family album – that time, eventually, takes its toll, and some treasures can’t last forever.
“He’s okay, but you can tell it threw him off a little,” Moore’s son Danny – closing in on 35 years himself as the second generation of Moores involved in D.E. Turner & Co. Hardware’s 123 years as a Main Street staple – said about his father, Mooresville’s unofficial encyclopedia about town, especially downtown, history. “Things he used to just reel off – dates, phone numbers – he’s not as sharp, but, for 90, he’s still pretty impressive.”
And soon after, Jack Moore, with jokes, as always, tucked between the comments, proved his son right, sharing memories and thoughts about the store, its place in town history, the changes he’s seen and downtown’s growing popularity.
Moore began working at the hardware store in 1946, when he was 15.
“I did what the Turners told me to do, shovel coal, stack things on the selves, put things together,” he said, describing his chores.
As years and memories unfolded, Moore’s knowledge about the store and its merchandise grew, and last Friday – like he did 25, 50 and 75 years ago – Moore manned the counter, telling customers where specific pieces and supplies could be found and how they should be used.
“I know this place, I know where everything is, what everything does,” he said. “This is the only job I’ve ever had, the only place I’ve ever been.”
"The only difference now,” he added with the playful grin indicating a joke was pending, “is that I get to do what I want to do.”
Perched on the “Liar’s Bench” – the main seat in a collection of chairs that’s been a conversation, storytelling and, well, exaggeration spot for store regulars for generations – Moore went through some of the history he often shares with customers. Things like the hardware store’s first telephone number was 26 (Miller Drug’s was 11); that Brown’s Cafe across the street, in the basement near the railroad tracks, “was the only place in town where people could have a beer;” and that, not really that long ago in Moore’s perspective, Main Street was nearly abandoned.
“There weren’t many stores left,” he said about the exodus toward the interstate about 40 years ago that left Turner’s and only a few others around the “hole in the ground” left when Belk department store was demolished on the site now home to the Charles Mack Citizen Center.
“We’ve had busy times, and slow times,” he said. “Things change, but I guess now the big change is how the town is growing. And it’s going to grow – it grows or it dies, that’s the way towns are.”
And Moore, who served as the Grand Marshal of the town’s Christmas Parade last year – “Now that I’m old, I guess that makes me a celebrity,” he joked – expects his store to remain as the downtown area experiences a revival.
“I don’t see why it shouldn’t stay,” Moore said. “It’s a part of the town. I see young men come in here now, like their daddies did, and that’s something special, for me, and for the town.”
Kim Atkins, executive director of the Mooresville Downtown Commission, also acknowledged the value of an enduring piece of the past as a prominent part of Main Street.
“Part of what sets downtown Mooresville apart is that we do have so much of our original downtown still intact, and D.E. Turner is a key component of our historic backdrop,” Atkins said. “Yes, we have evolved and will continue to do so, but we hold near and dear and celebrate a business that has been operating for 123 years.”
And Atkins considers D.E. Turner & Co. – and it’s reluctant celebrity historian – as prized and irreplaceable downtown artifacts.
“D.E. Turner is certainly an asset and does attract tourists and locals alike,” she said. “Walking in, seeing the original telephone, and hearing the stories of the things Jack has seen and experienced, from that same Main Street vantage point. There is nothing else like it and it certainly cannot be replicated."
Turner Hardware has got to be the Coolest Place in Morresville, NC. One if Jack's many stories I've heard is about back before Lake Norman was created by damming up The Catawaba River for supplying the ungrateful people of charlotte with water supply and power from the nuke plant built later and much of the surrounding area that was prime land. What is now IH-77 used to be a 2 lane dirt road that was the way to Virginia. Jack Moore is a descendant of the Moore Family that founded Mooresville.
Cool History (((PING)))
Our local hardware store in the center of town is even older. Has creaky wooden floors. Same family members running it for years. They support the little-league baseball league in town, etc. etc. Great for the local community.
They’ve learned to specialize to compete with the big box stores especially on garden equipment and repairs, BBQs, etc... They actually have good deals on certain things, and plus they are willing to help and tell you everything you need to know.
Since I also hate woke, big-box corporations, these local guys will get my first, and second, look anytime I’m looking to purchase.
We had a terrific old time family hardware store here, Boyette and Casey. I had a brass shop in the nineties and when I needed a pat for my lathes or any other electrical part or tool I used to hunt at the Home Depot and the Lowe’s and Ace until usually wound up at B&C. I eventually figured it out and started going to B& C first. The rule was If you can’t find it at B&C, you cant find it. The prices were a tad higher but the savings in gas more than made up for that. It was the last place that sold nails by the pound out of the revolving nail bins. The hurricane in 2018 ended it. The current owners were in their seventies and their progeny were off in Finance and Silicon Valley and government because their parents who were born hardworking but not in affluence paid for the kids and grand kids education and were not interested. in taking it over and no one else would buy such an antique style business so the stock was sold off and the building stands empty and roofless ever since. It is a great loss to the county.
“...supplying the ungrateful people of charlotte with water supply and power from the nuke plant...”
Hey...I’m grateful! I just wish I’d been smart enough to lease Lake Norman waterfront when Duke was giving it away. Leases eventually could be turned into a dirt cheap purchase if you wanted to keep the lot.
A side note...ever been downtown to Little’s Hardware?
Order online from them?
Nice story.
LOL ! I knew that was going to happen but I couldn’t remember which FReeper it was but I’ll remember now !!! I almost put a Disclaimer Notice on that sentence. So My sincere apologies.
Re: Littles Hardware, no never been there mostly because I don’t go to Charlotte unless I have too. I’ve been in Mooresville since 2011 and have probably been to CLT 10 or so times not counting when I was driving around all day doing Cell Tower Testing and when I was transferred to the Hospital there from Huntersville Hospital because they were going to put Me on a Dialysis Machine when I was having Kidney Failure after surgery for a ruptured intestine and everything was starting to shutdown and H’Ville didn’t have a machine but that’s a whole different Rodeo.
Next time I’m passing through I’ll check them out.
Bought my son a wooden bear there recently for the front door of his moutain cabin. $25 , must have been the price from 1975:-)
Yeah boy, if those floorboards could talk...
I always check with Jack/Danny 1st no matter what it is that I’m looking for even if I know they don’t have it. And even if they cost more than the forklift lanes do I’m still gonna pay them before letting any of My $$$ got to jimmy-i-cheat-to-get-5-out-of-7-of-the-NUTSCAR-championships along with his buttboychad.
I’ll have to take a picture next time I’m at Jack’s of the 2nd floor railing there is a Historical Display of Hand Saws that run’s the entire width of the building.
They even have several buckets of different sizes of Real Corks for individual sale. And of course Red Ryder BB Rifles. They stopped selling Ammunition when the fedz wanted them to pay “Tax” for the “privilege” of selling it.
Ungrateful punk kidz !!!
That really sucks bad that it’s gone.
If you can’t get it from Turner’s then most likely you don’t need it at all. Jack still has the original galvanized steel nail bins also. And if you need 1 or 3 nails to hang plants or something with they’re free.
I’ll call tomorrow and find out.
I’m gonna guess that it’s made by someone locally. But $25 does sound like flashback prices.
So I’ll take it You are in Mooresville or close by ?
If You look at the 3rd picture in the Thread on the right is the beginning of the Red Ryder Display.
Mars Hill
Cool, looks like a great place to live from the Satellite Map view and the Town pics. Kinda looks like Mooresville of old.
The idiots here mayor/council/planning commission are doing their best to destroy Downtown. They’re trying to make it into charlotte and the latest plan I saw is to make Main Street by Turner’s a 1 lane 1 way with expanded sidewalks, flower beds, less parking, places with tables/chairs and umbrellas like a sidewalk cafe.
Downtown is already kinda a PIA because of them giving pedestrians the ROW anywhere to cross the street and that just screws up traffic because drivers never know when someone is going to just walk right out in front of them.
And everywhere around Town they are building Apartments/Condos/Houses and it’s jacking Rental prices to the point of ridicules prices !!!
I’ve been here since 8/2011 and the quaint Town I moved to is disappearing quickly.
FReeguards
“It was the last place that sold nails by the pound out of the revolving nail bins.”
A few years ago I was in a small town and needed a bunch of miscellaneous nails, screws, bolts, washers, etc. No prices on anything.
I asked the guy how should I mark the prices.
“Anything iron is xx cents a pound. Stainless is yy a pound.” Just keep them in separate bags and I’ll weigh them at the end.”
God bless him ......
I drive thru there from time to time. I will stop and say hello.
I had to shovel coal in the 6th grade to keep the furnace going at my elementary school. (Blount Cty, TN)
Temp was -4 that day.Janitor had a hard time keeping up.
Jack is really a walking Encyclopedia of Local Life and History around here. Hopefully GOD willing Jack will be with Us for a long time. His Wife passed away a few years ago.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.