Dealer Profile

The small town of Upton (population 681) fails to earn so much as a dot on my Rand McNally’s map of Kentucky. Yet its mainstay, Jones Home Center, is punching well

It’s 7 a.m. in Malad City, Id., when Doug Crowther picks up the phone for our conversation. (Mercifully, it’s 8 a.m. at my home base in Minneapolis.) But that’s business

Six generations ago, young German immigrant Andrew Krempp made his way to Jasper, In., and launched a long history of family ownership in the building materials trade, with successful side

Bruce Jacobson, a contractor in Yuma, Az., who worked on residential and commercial building with a side of engineering, had a problem: how to get what he needed, and when.

Danny Baumstark, 65, is about to retire as head of Hermann Lumber, the yard he owns, in Hermann, Mo., pop. 2,700. But not to worry: The succession plan has been

Hooten’s Hardware LLC proves that the guy who promised, “If you build it, they will come” gave pretty good advice. Although the outfit anchors a beyond-tiny town in East Texas

This is not a how-to story. It works better as a cautionary tale: one of those “What was he thinking?” accounts that warns of a deep financial failure when a

Orofino” is Spanish for “fine gold.” And that’s how this small town in rural Idaho won its name. When the miners’ gold ran out, in came the loggers. Today it’s

Despite a clever disguise as owner of Wood Shed Lumber & Hardware Supply, Sharona Eiserer is really Wonder Woman. Read on and you’ll see how her super power (a.k.a. a

Hel-EENa,” the owner of Boehs Building Supply corrects this reporter’s mangling of his Oklahoma town’s pronunciation. “HEL-ena is in Montana,” he offers a reminder. And that’s too distant a delivery